Poetry for a Friday Evening

Being Exit in the World

Being exit in the world
Is all over my hands
In my mouth, hair
Like syrup
Being absurd in the world sticks between
My fingers, and webs them.

Man cycled and ethos lorned
Exit in the hole alone I defend it,
I make it come alive, I come alive, explode.
I fill it with my substance, my finger, tongue,
Tears, anything.

Void in the world I exist.
All the crevices of life are meat tight
With the heat of my sweat,
I abandon none; yet abandoned am I
Alienated as at first sea eye keys unlocked
Fish hook from earth worm.
I am every project I fill, every mouth of food
Is my being in every body;
And being exits me, rots root and tree top,
My essence visits a million dark rooms

Pulsing, I lie naked with sleepers;
I chose them into being–
It is my ecstasy,
I am the leper who suffers to be.

–Calvin Hernton¹

When I first discovered Calvin Hernton back in the day, I felt an instant connection to both his poetic and scholarly work. In his poetry, I loved his experimental nature, coupled with a rhythmic sensibility that wonderfully expresses his examinations of black cultural life. In his scholarly work, such as The Sexual Mountain and Black Women Writers: Adventures in Sex, Literature, and Real Life, I recognized an intellectual kinship with his desire to explore the intersections of gender and race. I later learned that he was also an exceptional and influential teacher at Oberlin College. Ajuan Mance, of Black on Campus describes his influence:

My high regard for Hernton’s legacy, however, is more deeply influenced by my encounters with Black men who knew him as a teacher and mentor. Hernton touched the hearts and minds of many students during his 28-year career as an African American Studies professor at Oberlin College, but he holds a special place in the hearts of his former Black male students, many of whom experienced him as the only Black man to ever teach them at the college level.

As a Black woman professor, I am especially touched by how deeply his views on Black women writers influenced some of the young Black men in his classes. A Black attorney I know spoke reverently of the influence Herton’s own story of transformation from a male-centered view of Black politics and anti-racist activism to a broader more inclusive vision that recognized the value of Black women writers’ critiques of sexism in novels like The Color Purple, The Women of Brewster Place, and The Bluest Eye.

…

I repeat that I never met Calvin Hernton; and for years I actually knew little of his work beyond his writings in my scholarly field. As my knowledge of his impact as a teacher has grown, however, I find myself feeling closer and closer to him, aligning myself with his legacy, aspiring to use the relationship between teacher and student in much the same way that he did, to create, challenge, and transform myself and my students, always with integrity, and always for the better.

To create, challenge, and transform–the essence of Hernton’s life and work. I hope to replicate, in whatever small ways I can.

1. Aldon Lynn Nielsen and Lauri Ramey, eds., Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone: An Anthology of Innovative Poetry by African Americans (Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2006), 98. [↩]