In It’s All Love, Black writers celebrate the complexity, power, danger, and glory of love in all its many forms: romantic, familial, communal, and sacred. Editor Marita Golden recounts the morning she woke up certain that she would meet her soul mate in “My Own Happy Ending”; memoirist Reginald Dwayne Betts, in a piece he calls “Learning the Name Dad,” writes stirringly about serving time in prison and how that transformed his life for the better; New York Times bestselling author Pearl Cleage is at her best in the delicate, touching “Missing You”; award-winning author David Anthony Durham enraptures readers with his “An Act of Faith”; New York Times bestselling author L. A. Banks is both funny and wise in her beautiful essay on discovering love as a child, “Two Cents and a Question.” And the poetry of love is here, too—from Gwendolyn Brooks’s classic “Black Wedding Song” to works by Nikki Giovanni, E. Ethelbert Miller, and Kwame Alexander. It’s All Love is a dazzling, delightfully diverse exploration of the wonderful gift of love.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
MARITA GOLDEN is the author of over a dozen works of fiction and nonfiction, including Migrations of the Heart, Don’t Play in the Sun: One Woman’s Journey Through the Color Complex, and the award-winning novel After. She is cofounder and president emeritus of the Hurston/ Wright Foundation.
The Zora Neale Hurston/ Richard Wright Foundation is the nation’s resource center for writers, readers, and supporters of Black literature. Founded in 1990 by Marita Golden and Clyde McElvene, the Foundation’s mission is to discover, develop, and honor Black writers at every stage of their development.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Poems
Wedding Night
A. VAN JORDAN
John
let's strip off our words
to speak without our tongues. let's
try to tongue without
saying a word. let's turn speech
back into struggle tonight.
MacNolia
no, in the middle
of the night, afternoon, or
morning, let's pull up
our voice, our moan, yes, our song.
at 3:00 A.M. bring back words.
John
why bring words when we've
waited so long for silence?
why bring light when we've needed
to knead heat from our shadows?
when dark rooms call out our names?
MacNolia
in the shadow's heat,
in the dark's light, in the night's
promise of morning,
there's always a language born
out of the struggle to touch.
John
I don't know if I
have the words to touch the back
of your knees, the small
of your back . . . brown lines in your
palms . . . what language can frame you?
MacNolia
our language frames us
as we resemble our words.
the words we speak when
an open window carries
our new language to rooftops.
John
and here I thought I
was teaching you! now, you show
me a mirror in
which I see a stranger, how
good it is to meet me when--
MacNolia
when we are standing,
nose to nose, as my wedding
dress falls to our floor.
A Black Wedding Song
GWENDOLYN BROOKS
First dedicated to
Charles and La Tanya,
Allen and Glenda,
Hake and Safisha
I
This love is a rich cry over
The deviltries and the death.
A -weapon--song. Keep it strong.
Keep it strong.
Keep it logic and Magic and lightning and Muscle.
Strong hand in strong hand, stride to
the Assault that is promised you (knowing
no armor assaults a pudding or a mush).
Here is your Wedding Day.
Here is your launch.
Come to your Wedding Song.
II
For You
I wish the kindness that romps or sorrows along.
Or kneels.
I wish you the daily forgiveness of each other.
For war comes in from the World
And puzzles a darling duet--
tangles tongues,
tears hearts, mashes minds;
there will be the need to forgive.
I wish you jewels of black love.
Come to your Wedding Song.
Autumn Poems
NIKKI GIOVANNI
the heat
you left with me
last night
still smolders
the wind catches
your scent
and refreshes
my senses
I am a leaf
falling from your tree
upon which I was
impaled
Haiku
KWAME ALEXANDER
If I am your heart
Imagine me inside
Beating, pumping, loving
Kupenda
KWAME ALEXANDER
I have never been a slave
Yet, I know I am whipped
I have never escaped underground
Yet, the night knows my journey
I have never been to Canada
Yet I've crossed your border
If I were a poet in love
I'd say that
with you
I have found that new place
Where romance
is just a beginning
And freedom
is our end.
Untitled
E. ETHELBERT MILLER
On your left hand
a paper cut near your thumb.
I notice small things
because I love you so much.
After Midnight
JALAL
For Milton
When opportunity knocks
I open my door
After midnight.
You appear
First in a line
Of homeless men standing
Outside a shelter.
You enter my apartment
Unannounced.
The neighbors on my floor
They come and go
They stand between the elevator
And my door,
Waiting for a way out,
They curse me,
"That Black faggot bitch got crackheads coming up in here."
Peering through their peepholes
They don't love us
Or even know how the pairing of two Black men
Is so much greater than the rumors they've reduced us to,
Rumors I hear when I enter the bar
Where no handsome stranger flirts with me,
Rumors that litter the streets we walk
And pollute the eyes around us
With -self--disgust and -self--pity.
When opportunity knocks
I let you in,
You open
My refrigerator door,
You take
Sacrifices packaged
And ready to be eaten
I run your bath water, wash your clothes
Lie in my bed with clean sheets,
But there are places within me
French kisses and erections cannot reach.
When opportunity knocks
America sees shiftless garbage walking
Through my door--a crackhead, a killer, a thief,
Another nigga racing past them in disgrace.
I live beyond the expiration date men
See stamped on my face.
I'm a forty-year-old Black gay man
Living a life challenged by HIV disease.
What makes me different from those who would
Exploit you,
Knowing you are
Unemployed, homeless,
And a crackhead on call who sells his body
For a rock, food, and shelter?
I worry about you
You don't have to fuck me
Or get fucked in the mouth for a meal.
I won't wet your appetite for -self--destruction
With my cum,
I won't buy you crack
Or give you money.
I will grieve each time
You tell me you can't stop
Smoking crack
And that you like your life
Just as it is.
When opportunity knocks
You fuck me with the sincerity and passion
Of a condemned man in prayer.
Isolation binds us
Soul mates locked in Hell's hotel room
And this is our wedding night.
Am I liberated or lonely,
Lucky or reluctant
Free or afraid to be hurt again,
Discarded by men
ISO (in search of) personal ad playmates
Wanted--Black men, must be younger, must be lighter, must be darker, more
Muscular, more masculine, more status conscious, more attractive than_._._.
After midnight,
When opportunity knocks,
I want you to find a way station of comfort
Not at the bottom of a beggar's cup
I want us to give more to our lives
Demand more of ourselves
Than despair.
Nonfiction
Lamu Lover
DOREEN BAINGANA
I am on an island_in the Indian Ocean. The sun is strong and constant; it is holding me up. There is wide blue water to soak in, salty and warm. Spicy Swahili pilau and fish, cold beer, and a warm man. A slender young man as dark and smooth and supple as the sun is bright. Issanda is lemony sweet. I am so far away from my life that regular rules do not apply. We are here, with our bodies, what can't we do? What can we do?
Seduce each other. He was in my workshop; I was the leader or facilitator. It would no longer be unethical for us to venture closer, the workshop is over, no grades were given, and now, on this island, Lamu, we are all writers here, together. But just last week I acted like I had the knowledge; since I was published, I pontificated and was in charge. He listened, not exactly at my knee, but close to that position, it may have been easier to impress him. When he walked into the workshop on the first day, my mind went yummy, but hid it in the very back corner of my mind where thoughts that pop up unbidden are stamped down and locked away. As the workshop continued, I couldn't help but admire his physical beauty, his eyes that were sharp with intelligence, though a little red from the dust, bright sunlight, or -late--night drinks, who knew? I noticed with secret delight his -sharpish--flatish nose that is a bit like mine; and his neatly cut toenails that are a tawny color that matches perfectly the coffee of his feet and the even darker leather sandals. I was amused and impressed by his effort with English, which he is still learning, and which comes out with a French accent, not a Congolese one, as I expected. His ability to make jokes in a foreign language, betraying a sly humor that belies his boyish face. His tiny teeth shielded by lips a little too large, a little too much, but by whose standards? I asked myself. Musing about that was pleasurable too. I was also genuinely moved by his writing, which would have struck me even if nothing else did. Thank goodness it was not wrong to voice admiration for his words. To the contrary. It was easy then to enjoy the nurturing that is part of teaching, of both him and my other students.
And now he is no longer my student. About fifty writers and I came from the United States to join about twenty African writers at a seminar in Nairobi. After a week, we flew from the Kenyan capital to the Indian Ocean coast, an hour's quick trip, for a writing retreat on the island of Lamu. We land on a dusty airstrip by the shore, with a long low shed for an airport, and, walking, push through a wall of hot humidity, across long brown elephant grass to a wooden, rickety pier. At the end of it are two dhows ready to take us across the water to Lamu. Yes, dhows, those -age--old wooden boats that plied the route between the East African coast and the Persian Gulf for centuries and led to the intermingling of Arab and African that became the Swahili people, culture, and language. We will live among them for a week, soaking in the sweet and spice of their hybridity that is clearly revealed by their skin color. The islanders are a kaleidoscope of browns that recall the word for brown in my language, Runyankore--itaka--which means the earth, mud, loam, or soil.
On the dhow, a giant creaky brown bowl, under a huge -khaki--colored flapping sail, between the wavy carpet of dark blue water and canopy above of brilliant blue sky; stroked by the -half--understood Swahili shouts of -half--naked sinewy sailors; brimming inside with beginning-of-foreign-holiday excitement, as tingly as the salty breeze, amid all this, somehow, even more: Issanda is standing next to me. The jokes we shared in class continue, or perhaps the flirting starts. He says, "My favorite teacher!"
It is time to make it clear. "I am not your teacher anymore; I am your friend." We go silent. I can only guess what he was thinking, and that is the scary thrill of another person, an other. I cannot enter his mind nor he mine, but I wouldn't want it any other way. My mind is a place of private little plays, where my character adopts the scene by having me emphasize your friend with a bold and meaningful look. In reality, I look out over the blue expanse to hide my face, too embarrassed to make a deliberate pass. Still, I feel...
Wedding Night
A. VAN JORDAN
John
let's strip off our words
to speak without our tongues. let's
try to tongue without
saying a word. let's turn speech
back into struggle tonight.
MacNolia
no, in the middle
of the night, afternoon, or
morning, let's pull up
our voice, our moan, yes, our song.
at 3:00 A.M. bring back words.
John
why bring words when we've
waited so long for silence?
why bring light when we've needed
to knead heat from our shadows?
when dark rooms call out our names?
MacNolia
in the shadow's heat,
in the dark's light, in the night's
promise of morning,
there's always a language born
out of the struggle to touch.
John
I don't know if I
have the words to touch the back
of your knees, the small
of your back . . . brown lines in your
palms . . . what language can frame you?
MacNolia
our language frames us
as we resemble our words.
the words we speak when
an open window carries
our new language to rooftops.
John
and here I thought I
was teaching you! now, you show
me a mirror in
which I see a stranger, how
good it is to meet me when--
MacNolia
when we are standing,
nose to nose, as my wedding
dress falls to our floor.
A Black Wedding Song
GWENDOLYN BROOKS
First dedicated to
Charles and La Tanya,
Allen and Glenda,
Hake and Safisha
I
This love is a rich cry over
The deviltries and the death.
A -weapon--song. Keep it strong.
Keep it strong.
Keep it logic and Magic and lightning and Muscle.
Strong hand in strong hand, stride to
the Assault that is promised you (knowing
no armor assaults a pudding or a mush).
Here is your Wedding Day.
Here is your launch.
Come to your Wedding Song.
II
For You
I wish the kindness that romps or sorrows along.
Or kneels.
I wish you the daily forgiveness of each other.
For war comes in from the World
And puzzles a darling duet--
tangles tongues,
tears hearts, mashes minds;
there will be the need to forgive.
I wish you jewels of black love.
Come to your Wedding Song.
Autumn Poems
NIKKI GIOVANNI
the heat
you left with me
last night
still smolders
the wind catches
your scent
and refreshes
my senses
I am a leaf
falling from your tree
upon which I was
impaled
Haiku
KWAME ALEXANDER
If I am your heart
Imagine me inside
Beating, pumping, loving
Kupenda
KWAME ALEXANDER
I have never been a slave
Yet, I know I am whipped
I have never escaped underground
Yet, the night knows my journey
I have never been to Canada
Yet I've crossed your border
If I were a poet in love
I'd say that
with you
I have found that new place
Where romance
is just a beginning
And freedom
is our end.
Untitled
E. ETHELBERT MILLER
On your left hand
a paper cut near your thumb.
I notice small things
because I love you so much.
After Midnight
JALAL
For Milton
When opportunity knocks
I open my door
After midnight.
You appear
First in a line
Of homeless men standing
Outside a shelter.
You enter my apartment
Unannounced.
The neighbors on my floor
They come and go
They stand between the elevator
And my door,
Waiting for a way out,
They curse me,
"That Black faggot bitch got crackheads coming up in here."
Peering through their peepholes
They don't love us
Or even know how the pairing of two Black men
Is so much greater than the rumors they've reduced us to,
Rumors I hear when I enter the bar
Where no handsome stranger flirts with me,
Rumors that litter the streets we walk
And pollute the eyes around us
With -self--disgust and -self--pity.
When opportunity knocks
I let you in,
You open
My refrigerator door,
You take
Sacrifices packaged
And ready to be eaten
I run your bath water, wash your clothes
Lie in my bed with clean sheets,
But there are places within me
French kisses and erections cannot reach.
When opportunity knocks
America sees shiftless garbage walking
Through my door--a crackhead, a killer, a thief,
Another nigga racing past them in disgrace.
I live beyond the expiration date men
See stamped on my face.
I'm a forty-year-old Black gay man
Living a life challenged by HIV disease.
What makes me different from those who would
Exploit you,
Knowing you are
Unemployed, homeless,
And a crackhead on call who sells his body
For a rock, food, and shelter?
I worry about you
You don't have to fuck me
Or get fucked in the mouth for a meal.
I won't wet your appetite for -self--destruction
With my cum,
I won't buy you crack
Or give you money.
I will grieve each time
You tell me you can't stop
Smoking crack
And that you like your life
Just as it is.
When opportunity knocks
You fuck me with the sincerity and passion
Of a condemned man in prayer.
Isolation binds us
Soul mates locked in Hell's hotel room
And this is our wedding night.
Am I liberated or lonely,
Lucky or reluctant
Free or afraid to be hurt again,
Discarded by men
ISO (in search of) personal ad playmates
Wanted--Black men, must be younger, must be lighter, must be darker, more
Muscular, more masculine, more status conscious, more attractive than_._._.
After midnight,
When opportunity knocks,
I want you to find a way station of comfort
Not at the bottom of a beggar's cup
I want us to give more to our lives
Demand more of ourselves
Than despair.
Nonfiction
Lamu Lover
DOREEN BAINGANA
I am on an island_in the Indian Ocean. The sun is strong and constant; it is holding me up. There is wide blue water to soak in, salty and warm. Spicy Swahili pilau and fish, cold beer, and a warm man. A slender young man as dark and smooth and supple as the sun is bright. Issanda is lemony sweet. I am so far away from my life that regular rules do not apply. We are here, with our bodies, what can't we do? What can we do?
Seduce each other. He was in my workshop; I was the leader or facilitator. It would no longer be unethical for us to venture closer, the workshop is over, no grades were given, and now, on this island, Lamu, we are all writers here, together. But just last week I acted like I had the knowledge; since I was published, I pontificated and was in charge. He listened, not exactly at my knee, but close to that position, it may have been easier to impress him. When he walked into the workshop on the first day, my mind went yummy, but hid it in the very back corner of my mind where thoughts that pop up unbidden are stamped down and locked away. As the workshop continued, I couldn't help but admire his physical beauty, his eyes that were sharp with intelligence, though a little red from the dust, bright sunlight, or -late--night drinks, who knew? I noticed with secret delight his -sharpish--flatish nose that is a bit like mine; and his neatly cut toenails that are a tawny color that matches perfectly the coffee of his feet and the even darker leather sandals. I was amused and impressed by his effort with English, which he is still learning, and which comes out with a French accent, not a Congolese one, as I expected. His ability to make jokes in a foreign language, betraying a sly humor that belies his boyish face. His tiny teeth shielded by lips a little too large, a little too much, but by whose standards? I asked myself. Musing about that was pleasurable too. I was also genuinely moved by his writing, which would have struck me even if nothing else did. Thank goodness it was not wrong to voice admiration for his words. To the contrary. It was easy then to enjoy the nurturing that is part of teaching, of both him and my other students.
And now he is no longer my student. About fifty writers and I came from the United States to join about twenty African writers at a seminar in Nairobi. After a week, we flew from the Kenyan capital to the Indian Ocean coast, an hour's quick trip, for a writing retreat on the island of Lamu. We land on a dusty airstrip by the shore, with a long low shed for an airport, and, walking, push through a wall of hot humidity, across long brown elephant grass to a wooden, rickety pier. At the end of it are two dhows ready to take us across the water to Lamu. Yes, dhows, those -age--old wooden boats that plied the route between the East African coast and the Persian Gulf for centuries and led to the intermingling of Arab and African that became the Swahili people, culture, and language. We will live among them for a week, soaking in the sweet and spice of their hybridity that is clearly revealed by their skin color. The islanders are a kaleidoscope of browns that recall the word for brown in my language, Runyankore--itaka--which means the earth, mud, loam, or soil.
On the dhow, a giant creaky brown bowl, under a huge -khaki--colored flapping sail, between the wavy carpet of dark blue water and canopy above of brilliant blue sky; stroked by the -half--understood Swahili shouts of -half--naked sinewy sailors; brimming inside with beginning-of-foreign-holiday excitement, as tingly as the salty breeze, amid all this, somehow, even more: Issanda is standing next to me. The jokes we shared in class continue, or perhaps the flirting starts. He says, "My favorite teacher!"
It is time to make it clear. "I am not your teacher anymore; I am your friend." We go silent. I can only guess what he was thinking, and that is the scary thrill of another person, an other. I cannot enter his mind nor he mine, but I wouldn't want it any other way. My mind is a place of private little plays, where my character adopts the scene by having me emphasize your friend with a bold and meaningful look. In reality, I look out over the blue expanse to hide my face, too embarrassed to make a deliberate pass. Still, I feel...
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More About the Author
I think I came into the world called to write. I have been a passionate reader and writer since I was a child. Books and language have provided me with a way to live in the world with an enlarged sense of my possibilities. Writing has thrust my personal questions and inner dialogues into the public space. In the process I have inspired others and learned from them through my work.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
IT'S ALL ABOUT LOVE: Black Writers on Soul Mates, Family and Friends edited by Marita Golden is a wonderful testament to the love felt by Black people for each other. It covers family, friends, lovers, husbands and wives. It reminds us that no matter what we read in the media or see on television, there is love in our community.
Some of my favorites were At It's Best by Tracy Price-Thomas, where she tells us of the love she felt for the two best Black men in her life: her late father and her husband; Two Cents and a Question by L. A. Banks gives information on children not being allowed to be children today; After She Left by Will Bester gives his pain and agony when his woman left him because of his punishing silences.
Each of the stories give information that will cause anyone reading the book to stop and think. It not only tells about loving and how to do it, it also covers mistakes we make when we love others. It is a must read book for people everywhere.
Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ(tm) Reviewers
Some of my favorites were At It's Best by Tracy Price-Thomas, where she tells us of the love she felt for the two best Black men in her life: her late father and her husband; Two Cents and a Question by L. A. Banks gives information on children not being allowed to be children today; After She Left by Will Bester gives his pain and agony when his woman left him because of his punishing silences.
Each of the stories give information that will cause anyone reading the book to stop and think. It not only tells about loving and how to do it, it also covers mistakes we make when we love others. It is a must read book for people everywhere.
Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ(tm) Reviewers
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What an amazing anthology that is FINALLY out; I have been stalking this damn book since Essence featured it a few months ago! It was worth the wait. There are SO many stunning essays, stories and poems in here. Even from favorites that you haven't heard from in a while like Patricia Elam, whose book Breathing Room was fantastic!!
I am going to spend all weekend enjoying this book and you should treat yourself or someone who would love it to this for Valentine's Day.
Most of the selections are new and hopefully from larger works in progress from these authors sampled. My ONE disappointment was The Hand I Fan With...c'mon Miss Tina gurl, we miss you...give us some new material already FOR FOX ACHE!!! LOL
All in all an OUTSTANDING purchase and worth buying again and sharing, for proceeds benefit The Hurston/Wright Foundation!
I am going to spend all weekend enjoying this book and you should treat yourself or someone who would love it to this for Valentine's Day.
Most of the selections are new and hopefully from larger works in progress from these authors sampled. My ONE disappointment was The Hand I Fan With...c'mon Miss Tina gurl, we miss you...give us some new material already FOR FOX ACHE!!! LOL
All in all an OUTSTANDING purchase and worth buying again and sharing, for proceeds benefit The Hurston/Wright Foundation!
