Assotto saint biography page
Spells of a Voodoo Doll: The Poems, Fiction, Essays and Plays of Assotto Saint
Assotto Saint was lost to AIDS on June 29, 1994 at the age of 36. Spells of a Voodoo Doll: The Poems, Fiction, Essays and Plays by Assotto Saint was published posthumously in 1996 and is now out of print. This collection is as compelling as Essex Hemphill’s Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry (1992; republished 2000). As with Hemphill’s writings, each piece by Saint is eminently readable and pulls you in from the first word. Saint won’t let you go until he is good and ready. The word “powerful” is barely adequate to describe Saint’s writing.
In the essay “Why I Write,” the first piece in Spells of a Voodoo Doll, Assotto Saint says, “My poems and plays are weapons and blessings that I use to liberate myself, to validate our realities as black gay men, and to elucidate the human struggle.” Saint’s weapons and blessings, his poems, stories, and essays, are often prophetic. They are as relevant to today’s america (just like Hemphill, Saint doesn’t capitalize America) as when they were originally composed. The following lines from “The March” could have been written in 2022:
let us
savagely charge a country
tempted by fascism
In “Shores,” Saint, an immigrant from Haiti to the United States, asks,
but do they know that our lady in the harbor
milks
us
immigrants
of
the
honey
in
our
blood
In “The Impossible Black Homosexual,” Saint takes no prisoners:
the one who on the day he nationalized as an american citizen
sat naked on the current president’s picture
& after he was finished
called the performance bushshit
Spells of a Voodoo Doll contains an unfortunately truncated version of Saint’s essay “Haiti: A Memory Journey” that deletes his account of returning to Haiti with Jan Holmgren, his partner, to see his father, whom he had never met. Saint’s famous lines appear in this essay: “Anytime one tries to take fragments of one’s personal
Remembering Assotto Saint: A Fierce and Fatal Vision
1.
Assotto Saint and I were both finalists for a Lambda Literary Award in 1997. He was up for Gay Biography, I was up for both Lesbian Studies and Fiction Anthologies. Neither of us would win that year, but I would have other chances. Assotto and I had both won before, but in those days, when everything seemed so temporal, the moment was everything. I wanted the win for my political offerings and I wanted it for him for history. I was very ill that year, bedridden and almost unable to move, and Assotto was on my mind a lot–all of them were, the gay men I had loved, who I had lost.
Assotto would never win another award because Assotto had died June 29, 1994. His work was over. The book that was a finalist, an autobiographical collection, Spells of a Voodoo Doll: The Poems, Fiction, Essays and Plays of Assotto Sainthad been published by Richard Kasak at Masquerade Books, who I would later work for as an editor in the six years before his death.
Spells of a Voodoo Doll was collected by Assotto’s friend and literary executor, Michele Karlsberg, who wrote a brief, yet loving introduction to the book that pulsed with him and his work.It’s 500 pages of Assotto. Five hundred burning, painful, lyric, raw, visceral pages.
The pages of my copy have that reddish tinge of aging paper that looks like it’s on fire. And the words? The words still sear. The words take me back a quarter century and I can see Assotto vividly in my mind’s eye, with his long graceful dancer’s arms and his languid, lilting speech which belied the anger and urgency that pulsed always just below the surface in the years I knew him.
In “Evidence” he writes:
gay boys stricken
again then again & again
black men broken
again then again & again
best friends taken
again then again & again
2.
I guess Joseph Beam was the first black gay man I knew to die of AIDS. There was a coterie of writers–black g Haitian-born American poet, publisher and performance artist (1957-1994) Assotto Saint Assotto Saint (October 2, 1957 - June 29, 1994) was a Haitian-born American poet, publisher and performance artist, who was a key figure in LGBT and African-American art and literary culture of the 1980s and early 1990s. Saint was born in Les Cayes, Haiti, on October 2, 1957, as Yves François Lubin. He moved to New York City in 1970, enrolling briefly in a pre-med program at Queens College, but soon dropped out to pursue his artistic interests. He adopted the name Assotto Saint around this time, choosing Assotto for a ceremonial drum used in Haitian Vodou rituals and Saint for Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint L'Ouverture. His early interest in the performative and aesthetic aspects of Catholic mass in his hometown of Les Cayes grew into a love of theater and performance. He participated in school productions at Jamaica High School in Queens, where he graduated in 1974. He performed from 1973 to 1980 as a dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company but stopped after an injury prevented his further participation. In November 1980, he met Jan Holmgren, a Swedish-born musician and composer who would become both his life partner and a collaborator in his artistic work. With Holmgren, Saint founded a theatre company, Metamorphosis Theatre, and an electronic pop music group, Xotika. With Metamorphosis, Saint performed theatrical pieces including Risin' to the Love We Need, New Love Song, Black Fag and Nuclear Lovers.Risin' to the Love We Need won second prize from Haiti 1957 - 1994 Poet, Entertainment Lambda Literary Award Editor of the poetry collection 'The Road Before Us' (1991, Lambda Literary Award). Poetry editor for the anthology 'Other Countries: Black Gay Voices' (1988), and founded Galiens Press to publish work by black gay poets. Dancer, Martha Graham Dance Company . Founded a theatre company, Metamorphosis Theatre, and an electronic pop music group, Xotika. Received the Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum's James Baldwin Award. LGBTQ activist. Died of AIDS. Assotto Saint
Born Yves François Lubin
October 2, 1957
Les Cayes, HaitiDied June 29, 1994 (aged 36)
New York CityOccupation Poet, performance artist Nationality American Period 1980s Spouse Jan Holmgren Background
Artistic career
Assotto Saint
Country
Birth - Death
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