![[My first professional #photoshoot for #bakla / #tomboy, a documentary on #Filipino gay men and #lesbians. I didn’t identify as either, but y’know. I was on the fire escape in the women & directors chair building in #uptown neighborhood I’m #Chicago. I was about 22 here? Circa #2004 #babyqueer #pinay #tbt]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/3750a02b91223efeb67256a571d4d861/tumblr_mnn4zjKLNH1qbvmfzo1_500.jpg)
[My first professional #photoshoot for #bakla / #tomboy, a documentary on #Filipino gay men and #lesbians. I didn’t identify as either, but y’know. I was on the fire escape in the women & directors chair building in #uptown neighborhood I’m #Chicago. I was about 22 here? Circa #2004 #babyqueer #pinay #tbt]
I love Lucille Clifton. I’ve used her poems to convert suspicious undergraduates to the possibilities of poetry in our everyday lives. Once we got to that “i wish them cramps” in “wishes for sons,” hoooooneeeey, them kids didn’t know what hit ‘em!
I never got to meet Lucille Clifton, but I’ve always felt kinda connected to her—I’m a six-fingered, poem scribbling, mama-loving June girl, too. If you don’t get it, that’s alright. I believe she would’ve. Honoree Jeffers is a daughter-poet to Miss Lucille and celebrates her work and life. I feel like a littlesisterpoet to Honoree who (also) loved her before they’d ever met. It’s hard to articulate, but I just wanted to know—even more than that, I wanted to be known by—Miss Lucille Clifton.
I was so hurt when I got wait-listed for Cave Canem’s Poetry Fellowship in 2009: I waited and waited for the news that there was room for me. I was crestfallen when it didn’t come. I was sad and bruised, then I said THE HELL WITH THEM! Aaaand then when I laid my righteous indignation down, I got to tightening up my poems so that I would make it next year. Come February the following year, I was heartbroken when I realized that I’d so narrowly missed my last chance to meet Lucille Clifton—she crossed over the day before Valentine’s Day in 2010. But when I was finally accepted as a CC fellow and attended my first poetry retreat in June 2010, I felt her spirit all around me. I felt loved by her because she loved Cave Canem. And Cave Canem loved me and her both.
My birthday was June 12th. And, honey, 31 was hard: mean-hard and sweet-hard and I’m so glad that I’ve made it, continually, to and through all my days thus far. On my 32nd birthday, all I could think & hear was Miss Lucille’s words in my heart:
come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.Miss Lucille’s birthday was June 27th and I am so deeply grateful for her life.
Here’s the full-text of the poem, “won’t you celebrate with me”:
won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.in peace & poem, y’all,
jdI met her at the Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival when I was in high school. (Here’s her reading a couple of pieces at the fest that year.) I barely knew what to say, but I remember her being really gracious. That and running off by myself right after to go write because I was overwhelmed.
I’ve never done a “top 10 poets that move me in a big way” list, but if I did, she’d be in at least the top 3. “Won’t you celebrate with me” will never fail to wreck me when I read or hear it.
j.bee posted a comic about mark aguhar that touched on many of the conversations i have heard discussed since mark’s death - how to mourn someone you didn’t “know” (“know” being a very nebulous word when dealing with an internet culture that has frequently been called and characterized as “oversharing” - whatever that means), public discourse concerning suicide (v murder), how to remember people, how to commemorate people, how art created by/for/about can be sensationalist, how to talk about how death (in general, and specifically mark’s) make us feel (the question about how that matters, does it matter)
j.bee told me that my post that said “lets keep reblogging mark” inspired her comic and we discussed how we see less of mark’s work reblogged and what that means, if it means anything.
as usual, more questions than answers becuase there is no answer. i am just reminded that there is no answer and at least a million questions.
RIP, Mark Aguhar
Mark was 24, a MFA student at UIC and an incredibly talented queer artist. I did not know her personally but she was good friends with some of my friends, including my decreased friend John (also queer and who also committed suicide this past November). I only knew of Mark’s art through Tumblr and remember occasionally seeing her at FKA and Chances Dances.
I’m tired of logging into Facebook to find another 20 something queer has committed suicide. I’m tired of seeing talented, intelligent and articulate peers kill themselves because they don’t feel like there’s enough space for them in this world. I’m tired of hearing about queer teens killing themselves too but sad that all of the focus on preventing queer youth from committing suicide seems to be shadowing, perhaps shaming, adult queers from reaching out for help.
The reality is that some people who choose to commit suicide are beyond wanting help or reasons to stay: they’re acting as agents, choosing what’s best for their being and the alleviation of whatever pain they’re experiencing. It’s important to remember that as we grieve. Although we may grieve the loss of their talents, energies, and spirit, we must remember they were agents still deserving of dignity, even if we don’t agree with the decision they’ve made. We must remember not to denigrate or further shame them through implications of weakness or failing to fight hard enough to stay. That’s not their shame; that’s the sadness of those grieving imposing itself on a past it cannot undo.
I’m on the Associate Board of the Center on Halsted, a LGBTQ resource center in Chicago. Part of our work on the associate board is advocacy, especially as it relates to 20 something and early 30 something queer communities. I’ve reached out to my fellow board members and to the Center’s leadership about installing Mark’s art in the Center as a memorial. I’ve also suggested using Mark and John’s deaths to begin a community conversation about suicide among adult queers and to highlight the Center’s mental health and counseling services (the fees are sliding scale, by the way). I cannot provide guarantees as there are many things outside of my control but I am trying, as this is clearly a conversation that needs to happen. I will follow up with more details as plans become finalized, etc. If you are in Chicago and are interested in helping with this endeavor please contact me via Tumblr fan mail or the ask feature of my blog. Considering that nearly 7K of you follow this blog, please reblog and share this information so that everyone who is mourning and interested in helping can contact me.
If things can’t get better for queers in a big city with large queer resource centers, then where do they get better? It’s on us, queer or otherwise, to make this world a worthwhile place to live as human beings for all human beings.
rest in power, calloutqueen.
chicago. mark. API. artist. queer. calloutqueen
this is such a loss, community. i send love and hope
to mark, to her loved ones, chosen family & communities.
this is a chicago brownline train downtown. I know that stop exactly. it’s headed to my old neighborhood…winter doesn’t play, son.
