During the 1980s-1990s in New York City, Colin was immersed in and deeply influenced by a vibrant diasporic community of Black Queer activist-artists committed to living—and writing—through the AIDS pandemic. This footage captures Colin’s undeniable presence as both poet and dramatic reader.
In the first clip Colin, reciting his poem “Etiquette,” believed to be as yet unpublished, explores how we strive for new rituals and language around HIV. He performs as part of a fundraising event for the Harlem-based Minority Task Force on AIDS, New York City’s oldest HIV organization serving people of color.
In the second clip Colin reads the poem “Terror” by Rodney Dildy from his copy of Sojourner: Black Gay Voices in the Age of AIDS, an award-winning anthology produced by Other Countries in which Colin also appears. For Colin, Rodney, and so many of their generation, Other Countries provided then—and continues almost four decades later—a collective space for Black gay men to workshop their writing, collaborate, publish, perform, and uplift each other’s work.
These two clips, preserved for more than 30 years in the archives of B.Michael Hunter, also a member of Other Countries, are screened together publicly for the very first time on July 17, 2024, at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, on the occasion of “Wild natures”: A Trio of Written Works, in conjunction with The Plural of He, curated by Andil Gosine.