Tag Archives: James Baldwin
Falling out
March 12, 2014 I know it’s about Vietnam, about the contested nature of poetry as precipitated by that event. And it couldn’t have been more public. Their letters, now collected into a volume, documented the widening gap, followed by … Continue reading
Equiano’s Turkey
November 28, 2013 Yes, according to Mark Forsyth, the Thanksgiving bird is named after a country 4429 miles away. But not the first to be so named. In fact, the original turkey was a guinea fowl from Madagascar, brought to … Continue reading
Suzan-Lori Parks, Diane Paulus, Deidre Murray : Three Women Collaborating
October 9, 2014 It won the 2012 Tony for the best musical revival, but the New York Times didn’t much like it, missing Gershwin’s full operatic scores in this “thinned-out” and “heavily-cut” version. Having no deep connection to the original, … Continue reading
Ralph Ellison, Gordon Parks: Photographers
Sept 18, 2014 The photos, under the title “A Man Becomes Invisible,” were in Life Magazine, 25 August 1952, close on the heels of novel’s publication earlier that year, on April 14. It was a coup. Parks had been a … Continue reading
Bono on Seamus Heaney
September 4, 2013 He was there at the funeral, of course, with Adam Clayton, and also wrote this short piece in the Guardian: “Every meeting I’ve ever had since I began full-time advocacy, I have brought with me a book … Continue reading
March on Washington: unsung
August 28, 2013 No, not literally unsung. In fact, the most memorable moments at the microphone, other than Martin Luther King’s “I had a Dream” speech, featured singers: Mahalia Jackson; Marian Anderson; Peter, Paul and Mary; Joan Baez and … Continue reading
James Baldwin and Richard Wright: What quarrel?
August 7, 2013 It was all very public, well documented. Wright had started out being the central inspiration. Baldwin’s essay, “Notes of a Native Son,” and his essay collection also of that title, are obvious tributes to the long … Continue reading
James Baldwin’s friends
July 31, 2013 Well, at least they went to high school together, that accounts for it: DeWitt Clinton High School, in the north Bronx. By the time James Baldwin and Richard Avedon brought out Nothing Personal (1964), they’d known … Continue reading