My friend Josslyn Luckett published this beautiful essay and I think ya'll should read it! Here is an excerpt... The full gorgeous letter can be read here at Ishmael Reed's Konch Magazine under the In this issue/Essays section.
Eulogy for Sekou
"May this Letter Find You Now, In the Best of Spirits Somehow"*
Dear Sekou,
I admit I was immediately sprung on you early 90’s NYC. Raised in Irvine, California, sure, I had four groovy UCBerkeley years under my organic hemp belt, but that didn’t quite prepare me for your “Bodega Republic.” I'd never met a real life, fine-assed, poet from Harlem with a name I couldn’t pronounce talking 'bout reparations and Deep Time with a didgeridoo soundtrack. Being grown, blissfully partnered and busy composing transcendental shout outs, you appropriately never gave me even one second of shallow time play (ahh, if only I'd been so lucky to be so politely and succinctly blown off by the handful of knucklehead poets I got strung out on in months to come...but that's not this blues). Years later we were once again in the same place, Williams College, at the same time, early 2001, for a black performance art conference where we'd both been invited to speak and perform. Calmer now and a bit more grown myself, I still hoped for "long conversations and the philosophical ramifications of a beautiful day" with you, but conflicting schedules permitted me only the pleasure of catching the tale end of one of your workshops. I remember you telling the group about a night you heard a recording of Pablo Neruda reading his poems on the radio, and you wept even though you hardly spoke a lick of Spanish. Your point was truth rings true no matter what language if your ears and heart and pores are open.
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