I arose on the wing today w/ @LovecraftHBO on my mind, esp. @shannonmhouston & @iSmashFizzle podcast’s exegesis of ep1. The show is so writerly I thought to add to its context w/ Toni Morrison & Robert Hayden, both here loosely building on the Legend of the Flying African. Contd—

Of course, the Legend of the Flying African tells of kidnapped, enslaved Africans who one day grow wings & fly back home. Think about that next time you call ya homie, ya lover ya friend “fly;” how the Middle Passage speaks to the black mermaid & Atlantic, wings speak to the air.

What I’m also suggesting is that mysticism, magic, legend, the gothic &absurd done always been available in the Black Literary Tradition in response to very real horror presented enslaved Africans & their children who are Morrison, Hayden & us today, now authors of our own story.

Still, it ain’t the given other nonblack, but esp. white, (re)viewers of the Complex Black Text will understand that story—esp. who still must stake their own (good/white) position as center. My review of a review of @LovecraftHBO touches on this here: https://bit.ly/2CzBLpP 

Hope I’m doing these threads right, lol. As y’all may notice I ain’t too familiar or at ease on these Twitter streets. Just a few more things to say re: context I’ve offfered & @LovecraftHBO. Still, I shouldn’t apologize: “Refuse the white gaze,” Morrison instructed. LCC obeys.

A fun fact to point out is Morrison includes her birthday, February 18th, 1931, in the first page of SO G OF SOLOMON offered at the beginning. Making her an AQUARIUS, which very clearly at least ONE of our trio has to be (my money’s on George Freeman ( @CourtneyBVance).

@LovecraftHBO promises to be an amazing creed, a holler, a chipped tooth, a scream, a balm in Gilead, a return of the gaze, a sibilance, a sexy time, a headache, funny af (lol— @jurneesmollett especially!), somber, ”the beautiful needful thing” and a dream come true.

& it’s true the way a poem can not have happened, but be true; how resistance truly is always integral to the Complex Black Text, where beauty & horror flirt—Majors. So I w/a reading in 1 of my trans voices of Hayden’s “Ballad of Nat Turner”: https://bit.ly/311yYPE  For you.