For Colored Boys: Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Still Enough. Ed. by Keith Boykin. Magnus, 2012. Paperback. 333p. $15.95. 978-1-936833-15-3.

Inspired by playwright Ntozake Shange’s 1974 iconic choreopoem, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf, the book For Colored Boys is a collection of writings by forty-four black, gay and transgender individuals who discuss a wide array of  issues:

Sexual abuse: Poet Rodney Leonard opens up about the abuse he was subjected to by a male family friend in Teaspoons of December Alabama: “I’ve been watching your round, girl-butt for a long time…you know you want it, anyway.”

The Down-Low Phenomena: Contributor Antonio Brown states “…yet many frat boys and jocks shared an open secret we always knew as the “down low.”

Suicide: In his introduction, Boykin shares the disheartening story of an eleven-year-old black student who hanged himself after months of enduring harassment and anti-gay bullying.

Homophobia within African American and Latino communities: Writer Topher Campbell shares his view in Coventry, Christ, and Coming of Age: “The idea of homosexuality in fundamentalist black churches is always treated with hysteria and hyperbole, ridicule and disdain”…[and, yet] “our communities are already full of secrets and lies.”

This anthology speaks to the 1991 classic Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men authored by the late Joseph Beam and Essex Hemphill in that, by design, it educates and inspires those seeking understanding and the ability to live their own truth. The writers’ voices are authentic representations of empowerment and the willingness to triumph over their fears and live the life that is tailor-made for each and every one of them.

Reviewer: Michelle D. Dartis, MLS

Indiana University Alumni