Essex Hemphill; Poet, Essayist, Getty Scholar

Essex Hemphill, 38, poet and essayist who read his work at clubs, campuses, museums and such entertainment venues as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. A native of Chicago, Hemphill was educated at the University of Maryland and earned fellowships in poetry from the District of Columbia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. He was a visiting scholar at the J. Paul Getty Center for the History of Art and Humanities in 1993. He contributed to the first book of his friend Joseph Beam, “In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology.” After Beam’s death from AIDS, Hemphill worked with Beam’s family to produce a 1991 sequel, “Brother to Brother.” Hemphill’s work was also published in such anthologies as “The Poet Upstairs,” “Natives,” “Tourists and Other Mysteries,” “Art Against Apartheid” and “New Men, New Minds.” On Saturday in Philadelphia.