Celebrating Countee Cullen @ Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx

Many a major American cultural figure is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx; Countee Cullen (1903-1946) is among them. One of the most important poets of the Harlem Renaissance, he is perhaps less read than Langston Hughes or Claude McKay, though several of his poems have solidified their place in the canon, among them "Incident," "Heritage," "Tableau," and "Yet Do I Marvel." Like McKay and unlike Hughes, Cullen worked almost completely in conventional forms, yet  as with both of these poets he explored questions of race, politics and society, and, like them, also touched upon sexuality, including (his) homosexuality, though with considerable discretion.

The award-winning poet Major Jackson has now edited a brand new gathering of Cullen's work, Countee Cullen: Collected Poems (Library of America, 2013) and in honor of its publication, Cullen's importance as a New York poet, and his presence in Woodlawn, the Poetry Society of America, in conjunction with the Woodlawn Conservancy, presented "Yet Do I Marvel: A Tribute to Countee Cullen," which featured readings of Cullen's work by Major and fellow poets Robin Coste Lewis and Rowan Ricardo Phillips, as well as vocal performances of song settings of Cullen's poetry by Alicia Hall Moran, with Brandon Ross (of the group Harriet Tubman). They did so in Woolworth Chapel at Woodlawn, which hosts the gravesites of a number of leading cultural and political figures of the past, ranging from Miles Davis and Billie Holiday to Duke Ellington and Herman Melville. It's worth visiting on its own, but the Cullen event made the event obligatory (and how perfect too to honor this great black queer poet on Pride weekend). I ventured up with friend and fellow poet Patricia Spears Jones, and am very glad I did.

Major Jackson, introducing the program

Brandon Ross, at left, and Alicia Hall Moran, at center

I must praise Alicia Hall Moran's singing and Brandon Ross's musicianship before I type any more words; as wonderful as it was to hear the poets, Hall Moran, whose voice and performances I've seen praised ecstatically before but which I've never heard live, added a completely new layer to Cullen's poems. The three songs she sang, "Deep River," "Two Wings," and "Prepare me one body," all arranged by the great Roland Hayes, brought out not just the spirituality of the poems, but their grounding in the Spirituals and the Sorrow Songs. Rowan invoked Longinus's description of "the sublime" and I would concur that Hall Moran certainly took these poems, and singing in general, to another place. I'll add that her enunciation made it possible to hear every word, and though she had a microphone, her projection was so rich and full she didn't need it.

Rowan Ricardo Phillips reading

Robin Coste Lewis bringing Cullen's words to life

The poets too did a fine job in bringing Cullen's words and works to life. Rowan recited "Incident" from memory; through her recital of several of his Epitaphs Robin showed the humor and wit that often get lost in discussions of Cullen, while also giving voice, through several others, to his queer facets; and Major, after an insightful, rooting introduction, read several unexpected poems, including "Shroud of Color" and "Mad Song," that demonstrated how current Cullen's poetry and politics are. All three poets selected judiciously from the rich store of Cullen's work and helped to give a fuller portrait of him and his art. I took notes on a number of the poems, and when I teach Cullen again I plan to use this volume and to introduce Cullen poems I hadn't considered (or didn't know about before) to my students. But first I plan to read the collection.

Everyone on the event's program: L-r (Charif Shanahan, PSA; Alicia Hall Moran;
Robin Coste Lewis; Major Jackson; Brandon Ross; Rowan Ricardo Phillips;
and Cristiana Peña, Woodlawn Conservancy)

Woolworth Chapel, Woodlawn Cemetery

Patricia photographing a large, felled tree
at Woodlawn

A sphinx keeping vigil in front
of the Woolworth crypt

Charles Rice-González at the Center

On Friday I went to the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center to hear Charles Rice-González read from and talk about his new book and first novel, Chulito (New York: Magnus Press, 2011). Men of All Colors Together sponsored the event, and Tom Wirth, a longtime MACT member and the editor of Richard Bruce Nugent's Gentleman Jigger (New York: DaCapo, 2008), and Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance: Selections from the Work of Richard Bruce Nugent (Durham: Duke, 2002), introduced the event.

Chulito tells the story of a 16-year-old Bronx Puerto Rican-American native, a b-boy to the core, who falls in love with his childhood friend, Carlos, an academic pacesetter and Adelphia University student. Chulito struggles with his understandings of desire, masculinity and machismo, sexuality, and his own and others' homophobia, and must come to terms not just with himself but with the future he steps into once he openly avows his feelings toward Carlos. Rice-González captures the Hunts Point section of the Bronx, contemporary urban New York latino cultures, and the travails of youth in their rich particularities; above all he shows the reader the world of queer brown and black working-class outer-borough New York.

The narrative, a romance at its core, is enthralling, often funny, and deeply moving, particularly at those moments when Chulito must confront and overcome his fears. Rice-González not only selected and read sections that showed the novel to its best effect, but he animated in a way I wish more writers would when reading their work. The story came to life right there in the Center. Before the event he talked about growing up queer and latino in the Bronx and the City, his work at the Bronx Academy of Art and Design, and the background to his work on the novel, and after he read he answered questions from the audience, including one about a potential movie. There isn't one slated yet, but there should be. In the meantime I cannot wait to read more works from this author.

Charles Rice-González

Charles Rice-González

Rice-González reading

Tom Wirth introducing Rice-González

Review: Gun Hill Road

TV and film depictions of latino male convicts and ex-cons are hardly rare; I could rattle off the titles of several without much deliberation. TV shows and films portraying these men's attempts at reintegration into society are not uncommon either. The narrative arc usually goes as follows: ex-con gets out and wants to go straight; ex-con struggles with temptations from his past, the constraints society and the law place on him, intrafamily tensions, etc.; ex-con succeeds and creates a new life or ex-con fails and heads back to jail. (And for every film or TV focusing on latino men facing such options there are triple that number featuring black men on--or running off--the same, troubled track.) Young and talented director and writer Rashaad Ernesto Green tackles this scenario to varying degrees of success, but his new film, Gun Hill Road (2011), I say without reservation, marks a strong debut and deserves to be seen.

The latino ex-con in this film is Enrique "Quique" Rodríguez (adequately played by the still very handsome Esai Morales), who has been imprisoned for 3 years on a host of charges. Enrique nearly makes it to the end of his term without a problem, but just before his scheduled release he attacks a fellow prisoner, a predator--on him, Green shows us, quite subtly at first--which only temporarily delays his release back into his native Bronx. Enrique faces the trials enumerated above; in fact, he's late for his homecoming party because he decides, against his better judgement, to sample a forty and hang out with his corner-bound group of old Gs (among them Franky G).

For Enrique's wife, Angela (the splendid Judy Reyes), his tardiness, in addition to the disappointment and annoyance it causes, is an immediate harbinger of how difficult readjusting to his return will be for both of them. Further complicating matters for both is a passionate relationship she has developed with her mechanic Hector (Vincent Laresca) during her husband's absence; she quickly squelches it, but that only goes so far.  For Enrique's parole officer Thompson (the reliably bulldoggish Isaiah Whitlock Jr.), it's a countdown until Enrique screws up and heads back to prison. None of this feels or plays especially fresh, and Enrique's character is just not as deep or complicated as he needs to be, but Green's characterization of Angela in particular and her recognition of the well of pain and frustration her husband carries around, as well as her own ambivalence, begin to push the story towards something compelling.

Harmony Santana

Yet the real center of the film is Enrique's only child, Michael (Harmony Santana, in one of the best performances of this year or many). For Michael, whom we see soon thereafter as Vanessa, a beautiful young transwoman, Papi's return obviously poses problems of a different sort. Santana's portrayal of Michael/Vanessa is one of the most vivid and assured performances by and presentations of a young trans person of color I have ever seen. When she is on the screen, the film is hers. In some ways Michael/Vanessa's story parallels that of the young black lesbian Brooklynite Alike in Dee Rees's breakout film Pariah (2011)--down to the one virulently homophobic parent-one understanding parent (here reversed, as Angela is poignantly supportive of her child, while Enrique, in part for reasons noted above and machismo more generally, is not), the chameleon-like changes in selves and clothes when at home and away from it, the interest in poetry and school in general, the sympathetic teacher at school, and so on--though I chalk this up to the common experiences many young queer working and middle-class urban people of color face rather than a lack of imagination. With Michael/Vanessa, Green adds complications that feel true and real, down to a conflicted jerk Chris (Tyrone Brown) who wants her body but can't deal with who she really is, and actual DIY trans-formation procedure that painful to watch. Throughout Santana embodies Michael/Vanessa from the inside out, offering a nuanced, complex picture that could easily have been the film's sum total.

Instead, and predictably, the film turns on the axes of Enrique's inabilities to deal with his child, which Green treats in several unfortunately trite moments (at a baseball game, and when Michael is forced to visit a prostitute), and to stay out of trouble.  Those Gs, that anger, that parole officer, of course. Green does, however, adroitly tie these two strands together, culminating both in a scene of horrifically violent revenge and a quest that tragically concludes the narrative. Still I wondered by the end of the film whether we ought and could not have had more of Michael/Vanessa's story and less of Enrique's. Or rather, what might the story have looked like if the balance of narrative had shifted a bit more in Michael/Vanessa's favor. That film's day, I hope, is coming soon.

Harmony Santana and Esai Morales

In this one, though, there are a number of additional elements to praise. Daniel Patterson's cinematography offers both grit and grace to every scene. Actors in the smaller parts, like Robin de Jesus as Michael/Vanessa's BFF Fernando, work their roles out. The depictions of the family's, Enrique's friends' and Hector's feelings about and dealings with Michael/Vanessa, are impressively complicated and feel true to life.  There are no false notes in the slice of the Bronx featured here.  Despite what I imagine was a tiny budget, the film gleams from start to finish.  Above all, Green presents a world that we too infrequently see, of working-class Latinos, in a multiracial and multiethnic New York or elsewhere, living--and struggling to live and thrive in--their lives.  For that, and for these wonderful actors, especially Judy Reyes and the incandescent Harmony Santana, and for his having achieved all that he did, I thank Rashaad Ernesto Green, and will be looking out for any films he makes in the future.