Black diamonds under a multicolored rainbow

The purpose of this paper is to study the intersection between race/ethnicity and gender, more specifically black-gay male identities, constructed from the poems by Thomas Grimes, compiled in the anthology Milking Black Bull: 11 Gay Black Poets (1995). We are interested in verifying how this intersection of multiple identity instances thickens, gaining body and voice in the poems, instigating more plural visions and unraveling more adjusted readings of the black-gay male identity, secularly suffocated, suppressed, and subjugated to anonymity and ostracism by/in a pronouncedly white and cis-heteronormative society. We defend the hypothesis that Grimes uses writing in order to delve into the intimate roots of those who carry the oppressive weight of a double burden, to say the least: being black and gay; subjects who, harassed by racism and homophobia, confront the authoritarianism of heteronormative and racial stereotypes, while pursuing the strenuous task of finding a chez soi, a place to which they can belong.