Come on in, habibi. Last week, we talked to local and national treasure Paul Hlava Ceballos about bananas, beating hearts, and beginnings. And babe, this week, he brought in an incredible poem we hadn't encountered before—"The Bathers" by Lorenzo Thomas—and believe you we, you're 'bout to become a fan! Paul Hlava Ceballos is the author of banana [ ], winner of the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His collaborative chapbook, Banana [ ] / we pilot the blood, shares pages with Quenton Baker, Christina Sharpe, and Torkwase Dyson. He has fellowships from CantoMundo, Artist Trust, and the Poets House. He has been featured on the Poetry Magazine Podcast, Seattle’s the Stranger, and his work has been translated to Ukrainian. He currently lives in Seattle, where he practices echocardiography. Lorenzo Thomas, a key figure in the Black Arts Movement, was born in Panama City, Panama, on August 31, 1944. Thomas moved to New York City with family in 1948. His father, Herbert Hamilton Thomas, a pharmacist, was originally from St. Vincent. Thomas’s mother, Luzmilda Thomas (née Gilling), was a Jamaican-born Costa Rican who worked as a community activist. Thomas was raised in a Spanish-speaking household. He became fluent in English while growing up in the Bronx and Queens. He sought to master the language to avoid bullies who teased him for his accent. Around this time, he developed an interest in creative writing. Thomas attended Queens College, where he earned a BA in 1967. Thomas published six poetry collections during his lifetime: Dancing on Main Street (Coffee House Press, 2004); Sound Science (Sunbe/am, 1992); The Bathers (I. Reed Books, 1981); Chances Are Few (Blue Wind Press, 1979); Dracula (Angel Hair Press, 1973); and A Visible Island (Adlib Press, 1967). In 2019, The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas (Wesleyan University Press), the first full collection of his works, was published posthumously. Thomas also authored works of nonfiction, including the critical studies, Extraordinary Measures: Afrocentric Modernism and Twentieth-Century American Poetry (University of Alabama Press, 2000) and Don’t Deny My Name: Words and Music and the Black Intellectual Tradition (The University of Michigan Press, 2008).
