Jewelle Gomez
b. 1948

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Biography / Criticism

Jewelle Gomez is not only a poet and novelist, but a teacher and filmmaker, who continues to explore new media outlets. Among her numerous merits is a Ford Foundation Fellowship at the Columbia University School of Journalism, where she received her master's degree in 1973.

Inspired by other members of the Black Arts Movement, including Ntozake Shange and Audre Lorde, Gomez has self-published two volumes of poetry, The Lipstick Papers (1980) and Flamingoes and Bears (1986). Her first novel, The Gilda Stories, was published in 1991, winning two Lambda Literary Awards. Recently she collaborated with the Urban Bush Women to create Bones and Ash: A Gilda Story, a dance performance piece that toured over 15 cities. Having added Administrator to her extensive list of credits, she has served as the Executive Director of the Poetry Center and American Poetry Archives at San Francisco State University.

Born in September 1948, Gomez' parents separated when she was two years old and she moved from Boston to Washington, D.C. She lived there with her paternal grandparents until the age of eight, when she returned to Boston and lived with her maternal great-grandmother until age 22. She remained in contact with her parents, spending most of her time with adults. Her father, Duke, owned a bar frequented by working-class and less "mainstreamed" blacks. While attending Northeastern University on a full scholarship, Gomez became involved with a number of social causes, namely protesting racial injustice on campus. Her activist spirit is one fiery element that continues to fuel her writing. Gomez has long remained a proficient writer of poetry.

Before writing her acclaimed Gilda Stories, she published a collection entitled Oral Traditions: Selected Poems Old and New. The poems written in free verse utilize a language rich in description detailing the "shocking" subject matter of modern lesbian poetry. Oral Traditions collects several personal experiences as well as the series of poems, "Gilda Sings: a Performance Piece in Four Parts" which is the foundation for the dramatic interpretation of Gilda called Bones and Ash. Known for her acclaimed work as a poet and novelist, Jewelle Gomez is also a teacher and filmmaker, who continues to seek new media outlets. Among her numerous merits is a Ford Foundation Fellowship at the Columbia University School of Journalism, where she received her master's degree in 1973.

The Gilda Stories is Jewelle Gomez' own interpretation of the vampire genre. The narrative structure uses story titles to offer the reader an idea of time and space, as the novel spans two hundred years. In Louisiana, 1850, the reader is introduced to The Girl, a newly escaped slave enveloped in a dream:

"Then the sound of walking, a man moving stealthily through the dawn light toward her. In the dream it remained what it was: danger. In sleep she clutched the hand of her mother, which turned into the warm, wooden handle of the knife she had stolen when she ran away the day before." (9)

After she stabs the man, covered in his blood, there is a recollection: "It was like the first time her mother had been able to give her a real bath. The intimacy of her mother's hands and the warmth of the water lulled The Girl into a trance of sensuality she never forgot; her body began to shake in the dream/memory." (10) The orphaned girl's memories of her mother come to light at various points throughout the novel. Gilda, a vampire, and proprietor of the farmhouse nurtures The Girl and provides a maternal figure for the young slave and along with her lover Bird, shelter the child in their New Orleans bordello.

Deciding that she must end her life, Gilda christens The Girl with her own name. The girl

felt a sharpness at her neck and heard the soothing song. Gilda kissed her on the forehead and neck where the pain had been, catching her in a powerful undertow. She clung to Gilda, sinking deeper into a dream, barely hearing Gilda as she said, 'Now you must drink.' She held The Girl's head to her breast and in a quick gesture opened the skin of her chest. She pressed The Girl's mouth to the red flow of life that seeped from her. (46)

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The study of Gilda's life that follows is sexually and racially ambiguous as Gomez searches for equilibrium in society. Gilda and friends never describe themselves as lesbians or vampires. In fact, the gay and lesbian vampires in within the multi-racial cast of The Gilda Stories do not kill; rather they take blood from their victims, leaving a dream or good thought in exchange. As Miriam Jones describes, The Gilda Stories self-consciously rewrites both the genre and the representation of the vampire figure, but most radical is her transformation of the metaphoric function of the vampire and vampirism. The Gilda Stories was praised not only as lesbian-oriented literature, but received much acclaim from the science fiction community, a trail she forged with the fiction collection Don't Explain, containing a number of short "sketches" and two longer pieces, both science fiction/fantasy oriented.

Lynx and Strand takes place in the distant future when the government controls the thoughts of its citizens. Body art is forbidden, as is travel outside the metropolis. Lynx, a corporate ad executive, and Strand, an empath, enlist the aid of their friend Nelson (after Mandela), a tattooist, to experience the life they desire. The bulk of Don't Explain contains themes relevant in her poetry and fiction: true love that exists beyond boundaries of race and sexuality. Also included is "Houston," which reworks a character from The Gilda Stories, proof that the Gomez heroine has certainly created a cult following. Finding a new Gilda story is the quest for many of her readers and fortunately Gomez has furnished the public with numerous tales since Gilda's inception. Included in the Gilda vernacular is her contribution to the lesbian anthology To Be Continued, "Joe Louis was a Heck of a Fighter." The story finds the recurrent character Samuel returning to bedevil Gilda and companion Effie. Samuel forces Gilda to think about her powers: "The paradox did not escape Gilda: her power was forged by deprivation and decadence, and the preternatural endurance that had been thrust upon her unexpectedly" (45).

Despite an immersion in the fantastical, a more reflective Gomez next published the collection of essays Forty-Three Septembers. She writes,

For me in my forties with no children, no property, no savings, embracing the nontraditional roles of lesbian, African-American writer, and the enigmatic gaze of my mother, I am frightened of middle age. If I reject the traditional perception of who I am, who I was supposed to be, with what do I replace it? My mind says there's really no limit. I write, I work as an activist, but to identify myself as only what I do is a mistake that men have made too often throughout history. So what do I make of myself?

Gomez continues to ponder an unconventional career as an academic, activist, and artist in the eight years since Forty-Three Septembers' publishing. She currently serves on the funding board for open meadows, a New York arts organization.

Selected Bibliography

Works by the Author

Don't explain: Short Fiction (1998)
Oral Tradition: Selected Poems Old and New (1995)
Forty-Three Septembers (1993)
The Gilda Stories: A Novel (1991)
Flamingoes and Bears (1986)
The Lipstick Papers (1980)

Jewelle Gomez b. 1948

Biography / Criticism

Selected Bibliography

Works by the Author

Related Links

Jewelle Gomez
b. 1948