Jerry Thompson
As the 2024-25 inaugural Archival Fellow at the Small Press Traffic Archives, I had the pleasure of curating a homecoming, a communion, a conversation with a handful of storytellers, artists, and page poets as a homecoming for beloved artist Michael Ross. Ajuan Mance, Nancy Cato, and Jeneé Darden dressed to the nines in history, legacy and sweet heat kitchen table, front porch heat… Sweet love…
From there, we opened space for all hearts stepping up to say no to the easy way out of the funky way down into and back to the present moment of saying yes to Michael Ross… Coming home to friends and extended family… Voices, memories, inspirations…
Here are the kisses from the pages and wet from lips remembering all the ways we took to get here…
My House: poems by Nikki Giovanni (1972)
This collection from the archives came to me like lighting the oven for thanksgiving day. A feast of moments caught in the ways we as a community of artists and family set the table. A lazy susan of good wishes, prayers, and warning. Nikki Giovanni and I were close enough to give the impression we might have been related in another life. She would park her car in my driveway when I lived on First Street between Market and Mission to attend her reading with the Alexander Book Company Sister Circle Reading Series.
A powerful book, an anchor of trusted moments on the page, a light post for all those hungry for the way back home!
for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange (1976)
The original copy of this landmark production is found in our archives and was lifted by its pristine thin volume of power and legend. Originally produced in San Francisco, performed in clubs and pubs made famous by the woman who would eventually become a friend and mentor. Incorporating the themes of finding home, leaving what hurts us, and finding peace and love in each other fueled the guiding light. Eternally inspired and connected by this great writer.
last rights by Marvin K. White (2004)
The birth of this first collection by dear longtime friend Marvin K. White changed my relationship to the planet of beautiful black men and their stories, our stories. The reach of its desire to rebuild a history of longing, loss, and rediscovery inspires me with every read, every visit, like that homecoming of smiles, tears and dreams not forgotten.
In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology edited by Joseph Beam (1986)
The groundbreaking legacy of this first-of-its-kind anthology reminds me every time how core and powerful it is simply to open the first few pages… To open it to any page stirs the spirit of every black gay poet who paved the way for these voices to rise. It is from this sharing that the inspiration for our event found its soul source and alignment.
Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir, 1969-1980 by Lucille Clifton (1987)
There is not a day that goes by that the spiritual pull of this collection takes my hand and heart remixing the thoughts of love and memory into a homespun reunion reminding me just how powerful words on a page can be. Lucille’s poetry is a wish for all humankind, all black kin to rejoice in the simple beauty of gathering over tea and maybe some tears…
Jerry Thompson is a bookseller, poet, playwright, and musician. His work has appeared in ZYZZYVA and the James White Review. He is the coauthor of Images of America: Black Artists in Oakland. His fiction and prose have appeared in various anthologies including In the Life, edited by Joseph Beam; Voices Rising, edited by G. Winston James; and Freedom in this Village: Twenty-Five Years of Black Gay Men’s Writing, edited by E. Lynn Harris. He is the co-editor of Oakland Noir with Eddie Muller, and Berkeley Noir with Owen Hill. His new book, Horn Dog: essays, poems and half promises, is forthcoming.
