Essex Hemphill: Portrait of the Month May 2013

Essex Hemphill at the Beams Philadelphia, PA, 1991

Born in Chicago in 1957, poet, writer, and activist Essex Hemphill was raised in Washington, D.C. and then settled in Philadelphia as a young adult. Hemphill’s early writings were published in Earth Life (1985) and Conditions (1986), but he gained significant attention when his poems appeared in Joseph Beam’s anthology of work by gay African American writers, In the Life, in 1986. After Beam’s death in 1988, Hemphill took over as editor of the planned sequel, Brother to Brother, winner of a Lambda Literary Award in 1991.

Hemphill’s poems and essays have also appeared in jour- nals and periodicals including The Advocate, Essence, Gay Community News, High Performance, Pyramid Periodical, RFD Magazine, and others. Ceremonies, a collection of his poetry and prose, was published in 1992 and won the American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian, and Bi- sexual Book Award the following year. His writings address contentious issues such as homosexuality in the African American community, the objectification of the black male in white culture, AIDS awareness in the black community, and intergenerational sex. Hemphill died of AIDS-related complications in 1995.