From the Past: An Interview with Poet Essex Hempill

The year was 1992. Those of us living with HIV/AIDS had no real hope of surviving on anything but sheer will and determination. Some of us were pouring out our hearts with words. Some of us were just trying to live another day. Essex Hemphill was a man doing both. An acclaimed poet, Hemphill granted a fledgling reporter an interview on a sunny afternoon one brief moment in time, opening up about topics as diverse as the controversial movie Basic Instinct, white men’s obsession with the black penis, and the idea that Madonna pirated her Vogue act from a marginalized community. At the time, both the poet and the reporter were living with the virus. Only one of them made it to the 21st century.

Read the interview and more at randyboydblocks.com.