LISTEN: LOVE MANY WAYS/HARD PRESSED

SHADOW
by Richard Bruce Nugent (1925)

A shadow am I 
Growing in the light,
Not understood as is the day.
But more easily seen
Because
I am a shadow in the light. 

At Black Men Who Brunch in April, we celebrated the arrival of Spring by adopting the theme of ‘Love’ as inspiration for our discussions and activities. Rather than limit ourselves to erotic love, we considered filial, and platonic love, brotherly love and love for ourselves. Throughout the day that we reminded ourselves that we are all on different journeys of becoming; both as lovers and beloved. It was inspiring to see so many of us had been intentional about our learning, and had so much wisdom to share.

During Hard Pressed, our topical panel discussion, we raised the question about what might have to change in order for more of us to enter into sustained, supportive, and committed same-sex relationships. Listen in to the powerful discussion that the question generated (starting from around 30 mins, below). I suspect that we’ll be revisiting this topic again soon.

Then to round off our panel discussion, inspired by Mike Scott-Harding’s lyrical introduction to the topic, the panel got the ball rolling on our playlist in response to the prompt to share a song that made them think about love in a different or surprising manner – Love : Many Ways. Those who attended brunch, or who viewed the panel LIVE on the BLKOUTHUB app were invited to add to the list that you can now listen to. Think of it as a kind of musical ‘Packed Brunch’, for those who might want to listen to something different to their usual fare.

(It’s a good idea to keep the AI playlist-choosing algorithm on its proverbial toes, before we become self fulfilling cliches of our dancefloor heydays)