Today marks eight years since Busy Being Black first came to life: on 21 October 2017, I produced and hosted an event called Forbidden Fruits, anchored by a conversation about love, intimacy and belonging among queer Black men. I couldn't have known in that moment how much I would need this space.

Ben Ellis is a poet—and a poet in the way James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and René Ménil meant it: one ordained to dive into the unconscious and awaken the rest of us with their marvels. I am stunned and struck by the energy of Ben's poetry, his vulnerability, his rage. I am enlivened by his sensitivity, his heartache and his desire for peace of mind. I am grateful to honour my own thresholds by bearing witness at the gates of his.

If you enjoyed this conversation, you'll enjoy the ⁠Black Marvellous⁠: a growing collection of conversations that adventure into Black imaginative vigour—in art, attitude and life.

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Chapters

00:26 Are you avoiding your own emergence?

02:04 The ordination of the bard: 8 years of Busy Being Black

12:43 Ben recites Pansies

16:32 All my poems are sad n*gga poems

24:19 There is no word for depression in my native tongue

29:25 Who is served by the performance of our grief?

33:16 Ben recites Milkshake

37:09 Can we reclaim any spirituality from within the religions that have harmed us?

47:23 I am Black first and Black also

51:00 Ben recites To Orlando

53:37 Peace of mind

55:55 Every gesture is a prayer when you know who you are

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Thank you:

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