The Word for No Is Yes
Conversations with Joel Singer and Stephen Silha with Franklin Abbott
I
first saw James Broughton when he and Joel Singer were attending the Second National Radical Faerie Gathering in the Pecos Mountains of New Mexico. I saw them from a distance and was waiting for an opportunity to meet them when it was announced they had left. James’ son Orion had been injured in a motorcycle accident and they were going back to California to be with him. I knew of James through his poetry and at twenty-nine was much in need of a mentor. I came out with the Stonewall Generation and we were making up gay culture from shards and scratch. Older gay men who were radiant in their gayness were rare birds indeed and James was one of them. We met when he and Joel visited Atlanta to read poetry and show films at Georgia State University. We met in Atlanta several more times, once when James gave the keynote at the second Gay Spirit Visions Conference (I remember his words, “the penis is the exposed tip of the heart”) and again when he was a featured poet (along with Judy Grahn and Essex Hemphill) at the 1990 Men and Masculinity Conference. I visited James and Joel whenever I went to San Francisco where they always were gracious hosts. I visited them as well in their forest house on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State which is where I saw James for the last time. He had suffered a stroke and was pretty much housebound. To cheer him up Joel had created golden wallpaper to cover their large living room space. James was ending his life in a golden cocoon.
I
could never write poetry like James did. He was from a different time altogether and used old words in new ways. When the dictionary failed him he created words that were so natural on the tongue it was as if they had been around since Shakespeare. He mentored me more in how to live a poet’s life. He was childlike in his curiosity and yet very savvy in the ways of the world. He was always intimate but with immense respect. He said that what the world needed most was praise and thanks and he never failed to offer both. I couldn’t have asked for a more benevolent faerie godfather whose legacies of poetry and film continue to inform and enchant me. Through James I met his husband and creative collaborator Joel Singer. Joel and I have continued our friendship since James’ departure. Joel now lives
and loves and makes films in Bali. Through James and Joel I met one of their dearest friends, Stephen Silha. Stephen and I have been good friends ever since. It was a pleasure to talk routinely with Stephen through the making of the new film biography of James, Big Joy. I asked Joel and Stephen the same three questions regarding their relationship with James and hope you find their responses valuable. I am delighted that RFD is bringing out this feature on James (I interviewed James for RFD many moons ago) and am happy to report that all of my correspondence with James is available online through the Special Collections Department at the Archive at Georgia State University. I am also pleased to be
working with GSU and the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival to create a symposium, “Unclassifiable Wonder,” about James and his work in Atlanta, October 18–20. Please feel free to contact me if you want more information (lokishango@gmail.com). The symposium will be both academic and ecstatic. “The Word for No Is Yes” is the title of a poem James wrote as a “letter to a young poet contemplating suicide.” I was lucky in my younger life not to be in that place though despair and depression were frequent companions. I took heart in James’ words, “there is a place where, believe me, heart and mind meet . . . a place where the bloodstream and spirit embrace.” He ends exclaiming, “In the realm of the fiercest oppositions, believe me, the word for No is Yes, and the star and the faun are One.” I wouldn’t say that James saved my life but he sure shined a
Franklin and James at the Second GSV Conference in Highlands, NC. Courtesy Franklin Abbott.
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