1

Tactics for Resilience and Resistance in the Face of HIV Stigma:
Examining Larry Kramer’s, Sapphire’s, and Danez Smith’s Stories
by
Carter Sawatzky

An essay submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
Bachelor of Arts (Honours)
in the Department of
English and Creative Writing,
Trinity Western University
April 2023

We accept this essay as conforming to the required standard:
____________________________
Dr. Holly Faith Nelson, Supervisor
____________________________
Dr. Robynne Rogers Healey

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“I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world,
is a revolutionary act. It is an act that can be met with hostility, exclusion, and violence.
It can also lead to love, understanding, transcendence, and community. I hope that my
being real with you will help empower you to step into who you are and
encourage you to share yourself with those around you.”
- Janet Mock

Introduction
Literature and history are entwined. Literature does not passively reflect history; instead, history
and literature actively shape each other. According to New Historicist theorist Stephen Greenblatt,
literature is a vital part in the “circulation of social energy” as literary works are not solely a
product of individual authors but are also shaped by the historical events and cultural debates of
their time, and in turn, these works influence and provide interpretations of those events and
debates, creating an ongoing cycle of exchange and influence (Parker 264). New Historicists
further believe cultural texts are the means by which history is made––not the other way around
(Buchanan). From this perspective, literary texts are agents of history and, thus, interpretations of
them are key for better comprehending history. Following Foucault’s conceptualization of power
and discourse, a major concern of New Historicists is to demonstrate how literary works are
involved in the power-relations of their time as “active participants in the continual remaking of
meanings” (Baldick). While theorists like Greenblatt are concerned that dominant power structures
in society can “contain” resistance to a degree, this essay argues that the subversion of power
structures in writings on HIV/AIDS did ultimately avoid total containment, thereby changing
society to some extent.
To theorist Michel de Certeau, marginalized peoples (in this case those affected by
HIV/AIDS) can only hope to fight or resist hegemony through the use of tactics, not strategies.

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To De Certeau, a strategy is a “calculation (or manipulation) of power relationships that becomes
possible as soon as a subject with will and power… can be isolated.” This is the characteristic
attitude taken by politicians, modern scientists, and military strategists (36). De Certeau explains
that the use of tactics, however, is “the art of the weak” (37):
[A] tactic is a calculated action determined by the absence of a proper locus. No
delimitation of an exteriority, then, provides it with the condition necessary for autonomy.
The space of the tactic is the space of the other. Thus it must play on and with a terrain
imposed on it and organized by the law of a foreign power. It does not have the means to
keep to itself, at a distance, in a position of withdrawal, foresight, and self-recollection.
(37)
The two methods of acting via strategies or tactics, what de Certeau calls the “everyday art of war,”
can be distinguished based on whether they rely on place or time (39).
The difficulty of deploying tactics becomes even more difficult when tacticians, including
creative writers, come from marginalized groups and the historical events are seen as stigmatizing
members of that community. Various intersecting forms of discrimination and oppression (based
on race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, age, etc.) can make it difficult for minorities to
assert their rights, advocate for themselves, and fight back through various tactics as they may be
hesitant to speak out due to fear of stigma and discrimination, and they may lack access to
healthcare, legal services, and other resources that can aid them.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic is one such event, with creative writers suffering from that
condition (or living with or loving those with that condition) trying to intervene in recent history
to resist the prejudicial perception and stigmatized treatment of those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
HIV stigma comes from the fear of HIV––it is a complex, pernicious, and persistent issue. In the

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early years of the epidemic, HIV seroconversion was often blamed on the newly HIV+ person
because of their so-called “risky” behaviour in gay sexual activity or intravenous drug use. HIV+
individuals from communities of colour, especially Black and Latinx communities, and lowincome communities, including those who are unhoused or living in poverty, are
disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic due to limited healthcare access and
discrimination; women, particularly Black or Latinx women, also face additional challenges such
as gender-based violence and limited healthcare access.
Authors living under these layers of adversity have the odds stacked against them,
especially as they attempt tactics of resistance for themselves. Because of their oppressed status,
their literary works cannot afford to be produced purely for aesthetic purposes, but they are also a
means to accomplish something in the world. In this way, they are reminiscent of what J.L. Austin
calls speech acts which perform something and have an agenda directed at someone else: “a
perlocutionary act is one of getting somebody to do something; persuading (them to do something),
convincing (them to think something), scaring (getting them to be afraid), insulting (getting them
to be offended), amusing (getting them to laugh)” (“Definition of Term Speech Acts”).
This essay will examine three perlocutionary acts, which can be seen as acts of resistance,
in three works of American literature on HIV/AIDS: Larry Kramer’s dramatic work The Normal
Heart, Sapphire’s auto-fiction Push, and Danez Smith’s poem “recklessly.” Rather than
ambitiously taking on a more global approach to AIDS literature, this essay intentionally narrows
its focus to specifically analyze American literature from 1985 onwards. This allows a closer
examination of specific themes and patterns in these HIV/AIDS narratives in the light of America’s
distinct experience of, and cultural response to, the epidemic. There are many fruitful and creative
ways to resist dominant belief systems and practices, but the goal of this essay is to focus on three:

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the re-enactment of confrontational “naming and shaming” in Kramer’s The Normal Heart, the
portrayal of radical selfhood in Sapphire’s Push, and the erotic focus of Smith’s “recklessly.”
These literary acts of resistance made in relation to HIV and AIDS, both descriptive and
imaginative across genre, intervene in cultural memory and history by reimagining the narrative
of the body and its surroundings, resulting in a considerable shift in the way those with access to
power, and society at large, respond to the HIV epidemic and those affected by it. By using the
tactics of naming and shaming, first-person intersectional narration, and bodily reclamation, in
their play, novel, and poem respectively, Kramer, Sapphire, and Smith participate in the larger
political effort on the part of those suffering from the disease and their allies to change
perspectives, opinions, and policies on their community and struggle.

Socio-Historical Context
The epidemic of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) was first recognized in the United
States on June 5, 1981, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued
its first warning about a relatively “rare form of pneumonia” in “a small group of young gay men
in Los Angeles.” The health conditions were “later determined to be AIDS-related” (KFF “Global
HIV/AIDS Timeline”). However, HIV had been around for decades by then (Be in The Know
“Origin of HIV and AIDS”). In 1982, the U.S. CDC established the term AIDS referring to four
“identified risk factors” including male homosexuality, intravenous drug abuse, Haitian origin, and
hemophilia A. In the early years, critics recognized the AIDS epidemic as “a crisis of
representational discourse,” especially as language was used to “subtly pit[] communities of ‘highrisk groups’… against the ‘general population’” (straight American society) (Howe 395). In 1983,
a fifth risk group was added to recognize female sexual partners of HIV+ men (KFF “Global

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HIV/AIDS Timeline”). In the same year, the term “GRID” or “gay-related immune deficiency”
became “increasingly used by media and healthcare professionals,” incorrectly linking gay identity
inherently with HIV seropositivity (KFF).
By the end of 1991, only ten years after it was first recognized, 1 million people had
contracted HIV in the United States, bringing a devastating number of the sick to 206,392
Americans, and the death toll to 133,233 (Jonsen 1). Since the outbreak of the HIV/AIDS
epidemic, approximately 84 million individuals have contracted the virus. Currently, there are
around 38 million people living with HIV, and over the course of the epidemic, tens of millions of
people have passed away due to AIDS-related causes (UNAIDS “In Danger”).
The HIV/AIDS epidemic has had a significant impact on American society, as evidenced
by the large number of infected, ill, and dying individuals affected by this previously unknown
disease. While the statistics and epidemiological reports provide a glimpse into the scale of the
problem, they do not fully capture the extent of the social disruption caused by the epidemic. Each
number represents a life that has been destroyed and countless others whose lives have been
forever changed by the disease.
In Milbank Quarterly's two-volume study, A Disease of Society: Cultural Responses to
AIDS, Dorothy Nelkin begins by explaining that AIDS is a unique form of epidemic:
AIDS is no ‘ordinary’ epidemic. More than a devastating disease, it is freighted with
profound social and cultural meaning. More than a passing tragedy, it will have long-term,
broad-ranging effects on personal relationships, social institutions, and cultural
configurations. AIDS is clearly affecting mortality—though in some communities more
than others. It is also costly in terms of the resources—both people and money—required
for research and medical care. But the effects of the epidemic extend far beyond their

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medical and economic costs to shape the very ways we organize our individual and
collective lives. (“Introduction” 1)
The AIDS epidemic is characterized by widespread stigma, discrimination, and inequalities, which
is a recurring theme in HIV/AIDS research and AIDS literature. When HIV first emerged, it
primarily affected “socially disvalued groups” (Jonsen 9); as the epidemic progressed, it
increasingly impacted people who lack economic, political, and social influence. Thus, AIDS is
undemocratic. Unlike “democratic epidemics” (Arras 19), where communicable illnesses affect
individuals regardless of their class, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and pose a threat to the
entire community, AIDS disproportionately affects certain regions and populations.
A notable aspect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is its prevalence in and around major urban
areas. HIV/AIDS is “a disease of neighborhoods and communities, of high-prevalence localities
and low-prevalence localities,” Albert R. Jonsen explains (244). For example, by December 1989,
“87 percent of all cases in New York State” were “concentrated in the five boroughs of the city”
(246-247); by March 1992, “95 percent of all cases” were from the five New York boroughs (247).
From the inception of the disease in New York, there were two distinct manifestations of the
HIV/AIDS epidemic, including one among gay men of different ethnic groups and the other among
intravenous drug users and their families in inner city communities. In recent years, the number of
cases among men who have sex with men and male intravenous drug users has become equal, with
a growing number of cases among women and children (Jonsen 257).
Government response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the early years was sluggish, partly
due to decreased “public spending on healthcare and welfare, and partly” because AIDS was
initially linked to “two highly stigmatized minorities—gay men and intravenous drug users”
(Jonsen 14). When action was taken, education for precautionary measures was limited by

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restrictions on public funds (Jonsen 14). Media response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic was also slow
in disseminating information about AIDS. Despite the fact that by the close of 1982, there were
800 documented cases and 350 fatalities from the disease in the U.S., and that both the CDC and
leading medical publications were explicitly stating that the country was confronting a critical
epidemioligical issue (Nelkin 297). Nonetheless, with the exception of the gay media and the San
Francisco Chronicle, which was swayed by the political influence of the gay population in that
area, there were few write-ups in newspapers and periodicals until Spring 1983 (Nelkin 297).
While the responses of the government and media to the epidemic in the 1980s was slow,
the early response of the gay community to the AIDS epidemic was marked by a remarkable influx
of volunteer action (Jonsen 15). This movement was driven by the collective behavior of
individuals coming together to care for their own in the face of a difficult and unprecedented
situation. This response was not limited to individual caregiving efforts, but also included political
advocacy through community-based organizations including the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
(ACT UP) and the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (Elbaz 43) as they insisted on alternative perceptions
of and treatments for people living with AIDS. Throughout the United States, specifically in urban
centres like New York and San Francisco, volunteer movements carried a significant portion of
the burden of caring for those affected by the disease, reducing the cost for “public agencies and
private insurance” (Jonsen 15). However, the movement faced challenges from “financial
constraints, burnout, and bureaucratization” (Jonsen 15).
AIDS activism was represented considerably in literature, as creative writers and artists
began to address the impact of the disease on individuals and communities in creative and
imaginative texts: for example, Kramer’s The Normal Heart heavily represents AIDS activism and
the various volunteer movements as the organizers continually argue over the effectiveness of their

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activist tactics. These works dealing with HIV often tackle themes of stigma, loss, and survival,
and helped to humanize the epidemic and bring it into the public consciousness. Over time,
advances in medical treatment, as well as increased funding and public awareness, helped to turn
the tide against the epidemic. However, the impact of the disease continues to be felt, particularly
in marginalized communities, and new imaginative literature continues to emerge that reflects the
ongoing challenges faced by people living with HIV/AIDS and their allies. HIV/AIDS narratives
in a range of literary genres have evolved over the course of the HIV epidemic. In the early years
of the epidemic, many works focused on raising awareness and increasing understanding of the
disease, as well as documenting the experiences of those directly impacted by it. These works often
tackled themes of stigma, loss, and survival, and sought to challenge dominant cultural narratives
about the disease and the populations affected by it. In more recent years, as medical treatments
have improved and the epidemic has evolved, the focus of HIV literature has shifted in some ways.
While works about the disease and its impact on individuals and communities continue to be
produced, late twentieth- and twenty-first century HIV/AIDS stories have also explored the
intersection of HIV with other issues, such as aging, mental health, and community resilience.

Larry Kramer, The Normal Heart
A notable and prolific AIDS activist, Larry Kramer is well-known for being one of the first
effective––and angriest––activist voices during the AIDS epidemic in the USA. Along with
playing critical roles in founding Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) and ACT UP (Rand 298),
Kramer is an established writer and playwright whose debut play, The Normal Heart, was first
staged at the Public Theatre in 1985. It is an autobiographical play about Kramer’s tumultuous
eighteen months working with GMHC until he was cast out of his own organization. Kramer’s

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main tactic is to stage a play in which he models public naming and shaming to effect change. The
play revolves around gay writer and activist Ned Weeks who deals with public and private
indifference towards the AIDS epidemic. The play’s plot focuses on Weeks and a host of amateur
activists who are simultaneously figuring out how to fight a disease no one understands while also
keeping their non-profit organization up and running. As Weeks seeks to wake up the world to the
crisis, he also deals with the personal toll of AIDS as his lover succumbs to AIDS-related illness.
The play deliberately uses verbatim quotations and reworded summaries of Kramer’s own articles,
borrowing liberally from his personal history and lived experiences (Nelson 240). Weeks’s (and
Kramer’s) goal in The Normal Heart is to communicate the truth without embellishment and “scare
the shit out of you” so that people will be moved to action (35).

Class and Privilege
The protagonist of The Normal Heart, like Kramer, is a well-off, Jewish, HIV-negative, gay writer
living in urban New York. As a gay man, Weeks faces the discrimination and apathy from wider
society for his sexuality, yet is spared from facing the dangerous realities of racism, classism,
sexism, and serophobia. Weeks is so well-off that his brother Ben says he could spend a million
dollars to “have a house anytime” because he “[hasn’t] done badly” in his writing career (24). As
a man with a trust fund and a wealthy family, Weeks can be openly confrontational as he does not
have to worry about losing his job if he were to come out of the closet. While his privilege allows
him the security to speak publicly against systems that discriminate against gay people, especially
HIV+ gay people, his privilege also blinds him from understanding how his personal views around
the closet and promiscuity can be harmful towards others. As a privileged upper-class man, Weeks
believes others should be out like him, declaring, “I think it’s imperative that we all grow up now

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and come out of the closet,” despite lack of financial support in a time of incredible homophobia
(38).

Naming and Shaming Government, Media, and Gay Men as Tactic of Resistance
Ned Weeks enacts Kramer’s aggressive polemics, not surprising given that he is his stand-in.
Weeks bluntly names, shames, and chastises notable political figures (including the city health
service and federal officials), the media (especially The New York Times), and his own gay
community for their complicity and silence throughout the AIDS epidemic. Part of Kramer’s
passionate rhetoric can be attributed to his Jewish identity and heritage. Because Weeks bears the
memories of his decimated racialized community, he frequently compares the harmful popular
response to the epidemic to the societal response during the Holocaust. Weeks’s tactics of
resistance are often forceful perlocutionary acts as his intention is to scare, insult, lobby
incessantly, and convince as many people as possible to take action in the fight to help his
community live. As he articulates in Act 2, Scene 9, “[w]e’re being treated like shit. And we’re
allowing it. Until we force them to treat us otherwise, we get exactly what we deserve. Politicians
only understand one thing––pressure!” (64). His goal is not necessarily to comfort those affected
by HIV/AIDS, but to conjure up a widespread praxis to fight AIDS, prevent death, and preserve
his gay community. As soon as Weeks’s friends begin succumbing to an enigmatic illness, he takes
prompt action by creating an advocacy group that later evolves into the Gay Men's Health Crisis:
his main aim is to “raise money and fight” (25) the disease which has an unknown origin.
No tactic is off the table for Weeks: he is motivated to use every available tool for the sake
of his gay community’s continued existence. Paralleling the epidemic with the Holocaust, Weeks
passionately argues, “Aren’t there moral obligations, moral commandments to try everything

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possible?” (30). Often in one swoop, Weeks will call out a wide range of people, implicating them
in murder of those dead by AIDS-related illness. For example, in a phone call, presumably to a
media organization, Weeks reads from his own writing: “It is no secret that I consider the Mayor
to be, along with The Times, the biggest enemy gay men and women must contend with in New
York… for ignoring this epidemic that is killing so many of my friends… And every gay man who
refuses to come forward now and fight to save his own life is truly helping to kill the rest of us”
(49). This is one instance of Weeks’s tactic not only to subvert dominant power structures, but also
to subvert his own community’s notion of victimhood as marginalized peoples. Instead of only
calling out the powers that be for their inaction, he insists on gay people’s radical agency in also
demanding their voices in the fight for life. Using intentionally provocative language, which often
offends gay folks who esteem free, liberated sex, Weeks uses anaphora by placing “I am sick” at
the beginning of several sentences to name and shame closeted “promiscuous” gay men who refuse
to take action in their fight: “I am sick of guys who moan that giving up careless sex until this
blows over is worse than death… I am sick of guys who think that all being gay means is sex in
the first place. I am sick of guys who can only think with their cocks… I’m sick of closeted gays.
It’s 1982 now, guys, when are you going to come out? By 1984 you could be dead” (35). Weeks
seems to give the gay community the hardest time because he rejects the notion that it is composed
only of helpless victims facing a deadly epidemic. He boldly insists on the political agency of
fellow gay men in his community and sees a distinct power in acting and speaking up.
There is a clever self-awareness to Weeks’s activism that embraces the intent to rouse fear
and basic human survival instincts. Weeks humorously recognizes that he seems to be the only
“screamer” (41) in the GMHC and jokes that his activism is becoming known as “the Ned Weeks
School of Outrage” (49). G. D. Hodge describes these resistance efforts as “serious teeth-pulling,

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scare tactics, and begging” (358) and admits that this plan ultimately succeeds for the way his
fearless advocacy brought in tremendous funding but also plenty of attention.
Weeks’s colleagues are alarmed by his fiery polemics, specifically by an early draft of
“1,112 and Counting” which acts as a health recommendation to choose abstinence and warns of
a future without gay men if no one acts up (35). Mickey, who works for the New York City Health
Department and is a member of the GMHC, slams Weeks’s writing as “a bit much” (35). Bruce,
the closeted, moderate president of Weeks’s organization, criticizes it as something that will “scare
everybody to death” (35) rather than promote action. Weeks sticks with his impulse, however,
saying that “this isn’t something that can be force-fed gently; it won’t work… There are almost
five hundred cases now” (35). Weeks’s colleagues believe he is being “too political” (57), creating
an unnecessary “panic,” and selfishly making himself a “celebrity” (49) off those afflicted with
AIDS, when the truth is that no other activists were willing to appear on TV or be interviewed due
to the nature of their jobs or fear of stigma. In The Normal Heart, Weeks manages to have their
organization mentioned in various newspapers, TV, and radio stations (49).

Limitations of Kramer’s Shaming and Naming Tactic as a Form of Resistance
Despite Kramer’s prolific history of HIV/AIDS activism and its marked success in many respects,
his advocacy can be interpreted as fueled by a personal internalized homophobia. Critics like
Douglas Crimp have noted Kramer’s rage to be frequently most scathing towards fellow gay men,
particularly those in government or media whom he suspects are closeted. This pattern or sign of
internalized homophobia in his rhetoric could worsen, rather than improve, the public health
response to the epidemic.

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Dirk Visser corroborates this sentiment, as he argues that The Normal Heart promotes
harmful “plague rhetoric” (14) which further blames people with HIV/AIDS for the spread of the
virus. Visser explains that through Kramer’s plague rhetoric, which repeatedly classifies
monogamy not safer sex practices as the only tenable solution, he refuses to respect other
perspectives in the epidemic that value the innovative kinship possibilities of multiple sexual
partners.
Kramer’s often aggressive, confrontational language also appears to reinforce the slutshaming of people with HIV/AIDS for failing to domesticate their sexuality into an approximation
of traditional heterosexuality. To Kramer, promiscuity and gay politics are one and the same. For
example, Weeks says “the gay leaders who created this sexual liberation philosophy in the first
place have been the death of us… why didn't you guys fight for the right to get married instead of
the right to legitimize promiscuity?” (60). At the end of The Normal Heart, Weeks again separates
promiscuous sex from, in his opinion, appropriate, chaste activism which mirrors his own
monogamous sex life, saying, “Being defined by our cocks is literally killing us. Must we all be
reduced to becoming our own murderers?” (86, emphasis added). Kramer insists on treating AIDS
almost exclusively as a gay problem despite simultaneously railing against The New York Times’s
misrepresentation of AIDS as solely a “gay disease.” While other AIDS activists were attempting
to ward off the common sentiment that gay men were to blame for the AIDS epidemic, Kramer
vehemently charges the gay community for what he perceived to be its failure to give up potentially
risky sexual practices and to take action on its own behalf (Rand 298).
David Román helpfully outlines how Weeks’s extended rage against the sins of
promiscuity implies, whether Kramer meant it or not, that gay men get what they deserve for
transgressing heteronormative structures such as the “traditional model of heterosexual marriage

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and monogamy” (62). Kramer’s push for a controlled sexuality is rooted in the belief that
monogamous gay couples––an approximation of heterosexuality––are immune from HIV
transmission, yet Crimp explains that monogamy provides no protection whatsoever against a virus
that might have already infected one partner in a relationship. Furthermore, Crimp explains,
[gay people] knew that the alternatives––monogamy and abstinence––were unsafe, unsafe
in the latter case because people do not abstain from sex, and if you only tell them ‘just say
no,’ they will have unsafe sex. We were able to invent safe sex because we have always
known that sex is not, in an epidemic or not, limited to penetrative sex. Our promiscuity
taught us many things, not only about the pleasures of sex, but about the great multiplicity
of those pleasures… Kramer's attitude about the formulation of gay politics on the basis of
our sexuality is so perversely distorted, why [he insists] that our promiscuity will destroy
us when in fact it is our promiscuity that will save us. (252-3)
The problem with Kramer’s message is that he assumes “careless sex” to be hopelessly HIVtransmitting sex while he views his own partnered sex as non-HIV-transmitting sex. This is an
unhelpful and inappropriate categorization for a public health crisis such as the AIDS epidemic:
his idea that monogamous, private sex was somehow exempt from HIV transmission is where he
further marginalizes members of his own community. His black-and-white thinking of “good sex”
and “bad sex” seems to be fueled by his personal rage against his fellow gays for the way they tie
sex to their gay identity.
It becomes increasingly clear in The Normal Heart that Kramer may hold a personal
vendetta against what he perceives to be a hypersexual, anti-intellectual gay movement––and he
arguably uses a good deal of the play as a vessel for his anger.

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Sapphire, Push
Sapphire’s Push (1996) was published 11 years after The Normal Heart (1985) and the HIV/AIDS
landscape had already changed significantly in a little over a decade. By 1994, AIDS emerged as
the top cause of death among Americans between 25 and 44 years old (APA 1990s HIV/AIDS
timeline). In the mid-1990s, the FDA initiated measures to tackle the risk of HIV and lower its
transmission rate; for example, in 1996, the FDA approved the first at-home HIV “testing and
collection kit” (APA). In 1997, there was a 47 percent reduction in AIDS-related fatalities in the
U.S. and “highly active antiretroviral therapy” was adopted as the HIV treatment standard (APA).
By 1998, the CDC reported that Black Americans reported for 49 percent of the U.S. AIDS-related
deaths (APA).
Sapphire’s novel is fitting for a time in which Black people are disproportionately affected
by HIV/AIDS. Push delves into the story of Precious Jones, an inner-city, formally uneducated
Black girl from Harlem who gives birth to two children by her father before she is 16 years old
and suffers sexual, emotional, and physical abuse from her mother; she also acquires HIV due to
her father Carl’s sexual abuse. Push might be considered a work of auto-fiction, as it is a fictional
story based on actual experiences of the author and written in the first-person voice of the
protagonist, Precious Jones. The protagonist’s story is not “real,” yet hers is real, in a sense, as
Precious is a composite of many girls Sapphire cared for in her time teaching in the public school
system. Sapphire’s tactic with Push is to write a first-person novel that shocks the reader to the
intersectional horror of one Black girl with HIV in order to effect change and inspire people to
have more understanding and compassion for girls like Precious. The author creates the character
of Precious not only, perhaps, to shock the reader into listening, but to foster empathy for those
like her and thus to act to improve the situation. Sapphire’s writing demonstrates that people like

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Precious can flourish if they are given the opportunity to do so; for instance, Sapphire shows that
Precious opts to access education when she is given the opportunity to do so. While both Precious
and Sapphire are writing their personal experiences, their tactics of resistance are different because
Precious is writing her own story, whereas Sapphire is writing the story of young women she
witnesses suffering not only from HIV/AIDS, but from many other forms of oppression.

Disadvantages of Class and Lack of Privilege
Every experience in Precious’s life adds to a seemingly insurmountable mountain of oppression
related to intersections of her race, gender, class, ability, and size. The young protagonist is fat,
Black, poor, illiterate, and a survivor of incest and other abuses. Eugene Bacon comments that her
problems are “too profound for a band-aid fix” (32). She is emblematic of the oppressed class as
someone deeply affected by the process of marginalization (Stapleton 215). Therefore, her activist
tactics are totally different from Weeks’s wordy polemics which come from a position of high
privilege as a man of wealth and advanced education, who resides in an environment where it is
relatively safe for him to be proudly out as a gay man. Expressed in her own dialect, style, and
non-linear format, Precious speaks boldly about her lived experience and finds the words as she
goes: through her autobiographical writing style, she documents her own evolution as she
processes her abuse, her child, and being HIV+.
Sapphire troubles common HIV narratives by creating a story where AIDS is not the focal
point of the novel, but merely one component. Coincidentally, Sapphire explains in the interview
that “the prestigious and powerful did not respond” when sent copies of the novel, but “people on
the margins of society did” (34). Push deals with a range of interconnected topics including
“poverty, literacy, early childhood education, HIV, child abuse, urban devastation, and food as

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abuse” (34). In many early ‘AIDS crisis’ white gay narratives and poems from the mid-1980s and
90s, AIDS is presented as the primary problem at hand: issues of class are seldom acknowledged
and if they are, it is a passing mention.

Subverting Dominant Narratives by Expressing Radical Selfhood as a Tactic of Resistance
In Push, Precious uses the power of language as perlocutionary acts to resist stigma, empower
herself, and survive. Through her writing, she compels the reader to realize the complexities of her
marginalized experience. Through a non-linear, autobiographical narrative style, Precious works
to subvert dominant narratives and challenge stereotypes about poor, Black women living with
HIV. By writing herself into existence, itself a feat for such an oppressed person, Precious not only
evolves individually, she also changes the world. In an interview, Sapphire expresses her belief in
the radical power of personal storytelling explaining that “[a]s Precious heals, the social structure
that is dynamic and not static is healed and changed also… by telling her story, she begins to
challenge the invisibility of those who are the objects of racism and other forms of oppression”
(Wilson 35). Precious’s first-person narrative as an incest survivor, as opposed to a secondhand
perspective, as in Toni Morrison’s Bluest Eye, creates an “intimate dialogue” with the reader which
grants an emancipatory “political agency” in Precious’s storytelling (Donaldson 54): she is able to
push readers to empathize with her marginalized perspective as a young Black, fat, poor teenager
and abuse survivor.
Precious starts her story with an action of aggressive self-empowerment: “My name is
Claireece Precious Jones. Everybody call me Precious. I got three names—Claireece Precious
Jones. Only motherfuckers I hate call me Claireece” (Sapphire 6). From the beginning, Precious’s
crudeness cannot be separated from her testimonial voice, and it provides her control over her

19

narrative: this uncensored writing style is one tactic in Precious’s arsenal. Monica Michlin notes
that this literary convention allows a “reversal of hierarchies (social and literary)” and also
“functions as stand-up comedy, and as a defense against melancholia or depression” (171).
By pushing herself to write, she slowly makes sense of the messy, interconnected
experience of ongoing domestic abuse, illiteracy, and bullying. For instance, after describing a
series of abusive experiences with her mother, Precious cuts to the present “now” where she is
sixteen and pregnant once again: “all been getting mixed up in my head… Everything seem like
clothes in washing machine at laundry mat—round’n’round, up’n down” (22). This image can
stand-in for the narrative as a whole, yet, the dirty laundry also represents the exposure of the
Jones’s family secrets. Everything is “mixed up” and linked in Precious’s life. Her abuse is a direct
cause of her illiteracy. This illiteracy, then, is a direct cause of her being ridiculed at school for the
verbal manifestations of abuse (“Secon’ grade they laffes at HOW I talk,” 36), but she is mocked
for the physical symptoms too (“thas when I start to pee on myself,” 36) and her size (“School I a
joke: black monster, Big Bertha, Blimp B54 where are you?, 62). It is through her writing that she
accesses her memories and is able to ground herself in reality: while reflecting on her baby, she
recounts the painful experience of incest and comes to a profound truth: “I think I was rape” (68).
The novel’s title, Push, is full of meanings for Precious’s life, as she not only must push
her father’s baby out in childbirth, but she must also push herself to write, read, learn, attend
support meetings, and care for Abdul. Ms. Rain, her teacher, recommends writing as the key to
Precious’s survival and says, “If you just sit there the river gonna rise up drown you! Writing could
be the boat carry you to the other side. One time in your journal you told me you had never really
told your story. I think telling your story git you over that river Precious” (97). Elizabeth
Donaldson explains that through writing her life, Precious “figuratively gives birth to her self”

20

(58), yet Donaldson also acknowledges that this writing is still structured and inspired by rape: “I
push him out my pussy” (68).
In Precious’s journals, “A is for Africa” and “C is for colored we black” (Push 65): her
story is definitively Black and informed by Black culture, Black authors, and her Black homosocial
community. Her literacy is key for her liberation and resilience: “It’s 26 letters in the alphabet.
Each letter got sound. Put sound to letter, mix letters together and get words. You got words” (64).
As Precious learns the alphabet, it is striking how the ABC’s resemble the acronyms of disease––
HIV and AIDS. This comes full circle as she reads The Black BC’s to Abdul at the end of the novel
(139), a children’s alphabet book which includes Black contributions to American culture and
society with each letter.
Once Precious is made aware of her HIV-positive status, she spends more time in group
meetings including “Body Positive” meetings for HIV+ women and “Incest Survivor” meetings.
She begins to journal more at the advice of her therapist, and works through the anger and
alienation she feels about her diagnosis, noting, “I know I ain’ the only one that got it, even though
that’s how it feels. But I’m probably the only one get it from they daddy” (110). Like other HIV
narratives, Precious emphasizes feeling disconnected from her body, yet the domestic abuse she
endures uniquely informs her experience as a Black HIV+ girl: “My body not mine” (111). In one
of her poems, she describes HIV as a stalker or ghost that follows her:
Everi morning
i write
a poem
before I go to
school

21

marY Had a little lamb
but I got a kid
an HIV
that follow me
to school
one day. (143)
By the end of Push, while looking at her baby Abdul, Precious is able to see her own
beauty: “Look his nose is so shiny, his eyes shiny. He my shiny brown boy. In his beauty I see my
own” (140). The reader is also transformed by Push as Precious has created a close intimacy with
the reader, forming an empathy for her messy, confrontational, marginalized story. Michlin
explains that as Precious “reworks trauma into speech, implicitly turning her ‘life story’ into the
novel we have before us, she teaches us to see those whom society continues to consider as ugly,
contemptible, exploitable and disposable, as precious human beings” (184).
Precious’s way of fighting back against all kinds of abuse and diagnoses is not through a
Kramer-esque confrontation of political indifference, but through the often explicit and unfiltered
confrontation of writing herself into existence. This, in turn, subverts dominant, prevailing
narratives around HIV as a majority white, affluent experience. In Push, both Sapphire and
Precious demonstrate that HIV can affect anyone: HIV (and HIV activism) is not limited to the
white gay community (as many mistakenly still believe) and no one is guaranteed safety from
transmitting or acquiring HIV. Push is a novel of a woman finding her voice, power, and identity
through language. In the end, Precious notes, “them words everything” (66).
Limitations of Sapphire’s First-Person Intersectional Narrative as a Tactic of Resistance

22

One possible tactical limitation of Push is that it is a complex story and not an easily digestable
read for audiences familiar with popular (white) HIV resistance stories such as Angels in America,
The Normal Heart, and The Band Played On. Sapphire “queers” the common HIV story of a white,
well-off, gay man living with HIV with Precious’s narrative. Elizabeth Donaldson explains how
Push blends genres and defies generic literary boundaries:
As a self-consciously realistic version of The Color Purple and a simultaneously
fictionalized rendition of The Courage to Heal, a classic of the incest survivor self-help
tradition, Push transgresses generic boundaries in order to depict technologies of the self
which constitute a speaking subject’s indoctrination into literacy. At the same time, Push
depicts a subject’s disciplinary rupture of the official discourses which contain her. (52)
In Push, Sapphire entwines HIV with other elements of suffering and pain including poverty,
illiteracy, domestic abuse, and racism to make a story that reflects the varied experiences of the
underserved, devalued Black girls she cared for as a teacher (Push 183). Amidst a plethora of white
gay HIV narratives, Sapphire’s tactic is to reveal the human caught in the complex issues affecting
people like Precious. Implied in Push is Sapphire’s overarching sentiment that to meaningfully
address the AIDS epidemic is to dismantle the racism and colonial attitudes of American culture,
not just homophobia/heterosexism that other white gay writers rally against. Consequently, the
antagonists in Push are not merely individuals; they are the systems of oppression that subordinate
and oppress.
This presentation of the antagonists contrasts with that in Kramer’s The Normal Heart
where the “villains” are more easily identifiable than they are in Sapphire’s Push as they are
quickly named by Weeks in his confrontational callouts throughout the play. The scene is set fairly
quickly, and audiences are almost immediately presented with the antagonists that they need to

23

focus on, including the self-hating and/or closeted gays who hesitate to publicly fight back,
apathetic media outlets like The Times, and indifferent government officials––basically anyone
who refuses to be loud, get angry, be shamelessly vocal about their support for those affected by
HIV, and fight back for their livelihoods.
In Push, Precious’s parents are her first bullies, and they mercilessly abuse her as a child,
yet, they are not the sole antagonists of her story as they, also, are subjects/victims of the same
oppressive system that dehumanizes and renders invisible Black people. Precious does not have
the means to “fight back” against her parents or the system which marginalizes and subjugates
Black people––but she can write.

Danez Smith, “recklessly”
Danez Smith’s collection of poems in Don’t Call Us Dead (2017) is unique for its exploration of
the author’s HIV+ condition alongside death and Blackness. Unlike Kramer and Sapphire who
witnessed the early years of the HIV epidemic, Smith, who is a generation younger than Kramer
and Sapphire and HIV-positive, unlike these earlier writers, is in more intimate connection with
HIV’s contemporary reality (Huber 217). In a 2017 interview, Smith describes how the collection
was first “two books, one that held a lot of poems written in the year following my positive HIV
diagnosis and another written around the continuing narrative of state-sanctioned and home-grown
violence against Black people in the USA” (Williams). At the editor’s recommendation, Smith
joined the two into a larger project which deals with many “different thoughts on mortality and
living” (Williams). Don’t Call Us Dead traverses the personal and political aspects of the HIV
epidemic in an emotionally resonant way. Through rich, illustrative figurative language, images,
and flowing motifs, Smith gives voice to millions affected by and living with HIV––specifically

24

gay people of colour. The poem “recklessly” writes back to history and HIV stigma to insist that
the Black, queer, poz body is one bursting with life, pleasure, and desire. Like Sapphire’s Push,
the perlocutionary act in “recklessly” is how it inspires the reader to witness the Black queer
speaker’s unique point of view and lived experience with HIV and demands the action of attention,
empathy, and re-perception.

A Lack of Privilege
Smith, who goes by they/them pronouns, finds themself at the intersection of several social
prejudices: they are Black, queer, working-class, and face the stigmatized experience of living with
HIV (Juncosa “I Got the Cell Count Blues,” 50). Even before HIV, the Black, queer body is already
vulnerable due to the various and increasingly institutionalized forms of anti-Black violence that
continue into the twenty-first century. While the author is able to access life-saving HIV treatment
and healthcare, Smith is acutely aware that this is not a reality for others in the Black community,
especially because of strong HIV stigma. In “1 in 2,” Smith includes a haunting statistic from the
CDC: “On February 16th, 2016, the CDC released a study estimating 1 in 2 black men who have
sex with men will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime” (61). Smith addresses this anxiety in
“every day is a funeral & a miracle”:
i got this problem: i was born
black & faggoty
they sent a boy
when the bullet
missed. (66)

25

Even before Smith seroconverts, it is noted throughout their poetry that the possibility of acquiring
HIV feels inevitable for a Black queer man (Juncosa 47). In this collection of poems, HIV is
repeatedly referred to as a form of imprisonment, and this takes on heightened meaning as Smith
grapples with disproportionate, discriminatory incarceration facing Black people in the United
States.

Centering Sexuality to Reclaim Poz Pleasure, Culture, and Joy as a Tactic of Resistance
In “recklessly,” the speaker refuses to let their story be totally overtaken by seroconversion, so,
instead, through a tactic of collage, the speaker reclaims their body and sexuality through
references to Black culture, music, and eroticism. For a poem titled “recklessly,” it certainly is
fragmented in its juxtaposed collection of feelings, sayings, quotations, and socio-historical
context. Smith’s poem is dedicated to Michael Johnson, the former college wrestler sentenced to
30 years in prison for “exposing” sexual partners to HIV through “reckless endangerment” (CDC
“HIV and STD Criminalization Laws”).
The poem is not shy about reflecting on the depth of shame and exhaustion caused by this
“bloodprison” (41) for HIV+ people: stigma internalizes quickly and overstays its welcome (“the
diagnosis is judgement enough”). Calling back to the gay community’s traumatic history with
plague and quarantine due to the HIV epidemic, the speaker notes that “many stories about
queerness are about shame / … [we] shall not lie with (mankind)” (41). In particular, in his use of
the phrase “shall not lie with (mankind),” Smith references Leviticus 18:22, a biblical text
Christians often use to denounce homosexuality, specifically gay male sex. The poem dialogues
with religion’s more harmful influences as a force of shame for queer people, linking them with
immorality, outsiders, and the damned.

26

Even though the speaker is burdened with the resonance of HIV stigma, they resist this
condemning “sentence” (41) by piecing together various rich, emotional, and full-bodied Rhythm
and Blues voices in the collage, including words or phrases from Alicia Keys’s “You Don’t Know
My Name,” Lauryn Hills’s “X-Factor,” Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,”
and Beyoncé’s “Drunk in Love” (Williams). Additionally, the repeating refrain “I got the cellblock
blues” and “I got the cell count blues” (41) interpolates a line of Langston Hughes’s “Weary
Blues,” itself a free-verse metaphor for the life of a Black man, into the body of his poem (Juncosa
49).
After this sprawling collage of references appears, the poem turns in a new direction as the
speaker dives head deep into their instinctual desire for men:
singing recklessly out of a boy’s/throat, driving recklessly with boy/hands, lay my mouth
on a man/as you lay a boy/into bed/ruin a boy like a boy/running recklessly/in the rain in
Easter white/as boys do/eating recklessly with a boy’s/hunger, praising recklessly whatever
was near/knelling/recklessly with a boy’s knees/in front of convenient gods/when morning
came & still i was/recklessly a boy’s throat/until he was done & everywhere on my body
was a boy’s throat/yes, i was his if only once/& i was his/as well & i was/everywhere, like
a god/or a virus & i was everything/required of me & i was anything/but tame/& so, so
long from then/i stand in the deepest part of night/singing recklessly, calling/what must
feast/ to feast. (42)
In the light of the poem’s dedication to Johnson, the forward slashes may represent how HIV
impacts sexual intimacy and the force of its interruption on those it affects. Despite HIV not being
a death sentence anymore with proper treatment, the slashes are enmeshed in the speaker’s most

27

intimate moments. Sam Huber aptly explains that “death is everywhere in Smith’s poems,
entwined with every intimacy” (229).
As the word “recklessly” is repeated throughout this section, it seems the speaker intends
to strip the word of its loaded, criminal meanings that negatively reflect on HIV+ people regardless
of the way they acquire the virus. This effective tactic adds passion to the slew of erotic energy
between the boyish speaker and his lover. More than a sexual encounter, together they are
recklessly in romantic love: “running recklessly/in the rain in Easter white/as boys do” (Smith 42).
HIV is cleverly used as a metaphor to describe how the speaker is all over the boy: “i was his/as
well & i was/everywhere, like a god/or a virus & i was everything/required of me & i was
anything/but tame” (42). Despite the haunting blues, the speaker insists on a buoyancy of spirit as
they rejoice in their lover’s body. Instead of being moved to withdrawal in their dark night of the
soul, they confidently launch forward and over the shame: “i stand in the deepest part of
night/singing recklessly, calling/what must feast/ to feast” (42). This “feast,” itself loaded with
religious meanings, is a retort to the previous religious shame as it suggests heavenly reward, even
royal banquets, for gay poz people of colour, too. In the face of despair, this feast insists that there
is more glorious life ahead despite the diagnosis. Life is not over by any means––it has only begun.
The speaker experiments with different perspectives around their new status: they attempt
to see it as “a love story”: “he came/over / & then he left / but he stayed” (43). The possibility of
irony is present in Smith’s poem, yet there remains a dash of hopefulness especially considering
Tim Dean’s provocative article “Breeding Culture,” where he attempts to build an optimistic view
of HIV that envisions possibilities of solidarity between poz people. Dean explains that
seropositive people can possibly bond fraternally over their condition as one blood “brotherhood”

28

(78). Perhaps in “recklessly,” the speaker feels some comfort about this peculiar “love story” as
the man who transmitted the virus to them continues to have a permanent impact (“he stayed”).
This mysterious lingering presence of a man is reminiscent of the Christian divine who
dwells with mankind––perhaps even lies with mankind––leading the poem’s speaker to fix
themself upon the future, on desire, rather than changing the past. The speaker focuses on the lover
and submitting devoutly to the “body boiled down to desire”:
as the car rolls into his garage
as you become a kind of garage
as the skin breaks as the skin do
as salt overwhelms
your simple palate as you sing
salt devotion as salt
gives way to salt as you are
a body boiled down to desire (44)
In this passage, the taste of a lover proves stronger than the stigmatized illness, and shame is
repelled for another day. Through this erotic resistance, the speaker is reassured of life’s sweetness:
ritual, sweet lord
i’ve seen thy wrath
& it taste like sugar
lay thy merciful hand
around my neck (44)
Fueled with loaded religious language of “devotion,” “wrath,” and “thy merciful hand,” the
speaker is practically the psalmist who says “taste and see that the LORD is good” (Psalm 34:8,

29

NRSV) and is redeemed by their faith. Like a pilgrim arriving at their destination, their pleasure
is increased, not diminished, because of their tribulations. Because of the joyous reclamations of
spirit and body exclaimed in “recklessly,” there is a therapeutic reassurance that death is not their
reality as it might have been in the past:
it’s not a death sentence anymore
it’s not

death

anymore

it’s

more

it’s

a

sentence

a

sentence

The speaker is able to meet HIV as simply a sentence because they met their “cellblock blues”
with a compilation of feeling, rhythm, and pleasure. As a fragmented collage of voices and
feelings, “recklessly” functions as a poignant reclamation of poz dignity and sexuality;–the speaker
continues to desire and be desired. They are more than a sentence; they are a sacrament.

Limitations of Bodily Reclamation and Sacramentalization as a Tactic of Resistance
This poem, “recklessly,” in particular is about the shock of acquiring the virus, hence the
fragmented sections and amalgamation of lines. In this form of lyrical delivery, it is possible that
readers may manage to glean the wide-ranging impacts of HIV on the speaker, including the impact
on one’s sexuality as a poz person. However, there is a concern that the collage technique
employed in “recklessly” can become too overloaded to appeal to a wide readership. The lack of
a clear speaker and voice in “recklessly” is one limitation of the piece: often the poem reads as a
stream of consciousness piece. Because of this fragmented style, Smith’s poem lacks a strong
intimacy with the reader as is developed in Sapphire’s Push. Readers must read between the lines

30

if the collage of meanings is to penetrate them. To read between the lines, the reader needs to
expend significant energy unpacking the poem to make sense of its overlapping or layered
meanings. Amid the many identifying intersections addressed in “recklessly” including ethnicity,
class, and sexual orientation, the narrative of HIV can become difficult to follow.
Finally, there is a risk that the explicit descriptions of sexuality in Smith’s poems, including
“recklessly,” will turn away potential audiences. In “recklessly” there are numerous detailed,
graphic descriptions of sexual intercourse, bodily fluids, and religious language is often used in
these passages. While sexual reclamation is important for poz people, this tactic of resistance may
be perceived as too risky or transgressive to HIV- people due to lingering stigma and serophobia.
There are certainly clear benefits to Smith’s poz representation, especially as so many
remain unaware that U=U (undetectable equals untransmittable) and that a poz person on lifesaving treatment cannot transmit HIV because their viral load is undetectable. Reading about one
Black, queer, poz person’s erotic pleasures can be a revitalizing, healing experience for people
facing such blatant daily discrimination. At the same time, this tactic may challenge the prudish
inclinations in many readers that might discourage further interest. Furthermore, explicit sexual
imagery as resistance may also divert attention from other important, tangible issues related to the
ongoing spread of HIV, including unequal access to healthcare, safer sex practices, regular HIV
testing, and other points of discrimination.

31

Conclusion
It is difficult to know empirically which of Kramer, Sapphire, and Smith’s tactics were most
effective at bringing about political, social, or cultural change. However, each tactic contributes to
the larger socio-political effort to counter and subvert oppressive narratives around HIV/AIDS.
Some of the author’s tactics expect more from their community, while others focus on empowering
and comforting their community. Each of the HIV/AIDS writings examined involve the subversion
of power structures and ultimately avoid total containment and absorption into the system, thereby
changing society to a degree.
Kramer’s (and Weeks’s) showcasing of the naming and shaming tactic of resistance in The
Normal Heart, while controversial, is significant in inspiring direct political action to fight back
against the spread of HIV and societal complicity. The autobiographical play makes use of more
confrontational perlocutionary acts as it intends to scare, insult, and provoke media, government,
and the gay community to compel them to attend to the urgent cause of the early AIDS crisis.
Sapphire aims to shock and inspire empathy in the reader by writing a first-person novel about one
HIV+ Black girl who is an amalgam of several Black girls she has taught. Sapphire’s and
Precious’s tactic is to write the self and their lived experiences into existence. In doing so, they
subvert dominant narratives around HIV and challenge the reader to reevaluate their commitment
to empathy and justice. Smith’s poem “recklessly” foregrounds sexuality to reclaim the Black,
queer, poz body, granting it autonomy, liberation, and agency. Both Smith, and the poem’s
speaker, seek to confront the reader with HIV+ pleasure, culture, and joy as a tactic of resistance
which demands the reader actively reapprehend them (and others like them) and their lived
experience with empathy.

32

While some tactics of resistance may have wider reach and effectiveness, every tactician’s
efforts are needed for fighting back against stigmatized illness, ongoing discrimination, and
societal indifference to HIV/AIDS. The creative and imaginative acts of resistance are not in
competition with each other. Instead, these writers build on each other’s works in the larger artistic
struggle to oppose prejudicial treatment of HIV+ people and inspire action to help HIV-affected
communities.

Epilogue
The impact of Kramer’s play is undeniable. Its many revivals and showings demonstrate the
longevity of Kramer’s tactics of resistance and a renewed public interest in the HIV crisis. The
Normal Heart was first staged by New York's Off-Broadway Public Theater in 1985, when
discussions about AIDS were not yet common in film, TV or even the American Presidency. The
play forces audiences beyond the tight-knit queer community to confront the realities of the HIV
epidemic. The play ran at The Public Theater for over 200 performances and it was subsequently
staged in Los Angeles and London (Franklin “Theatre”). It enjoyed a revival Off-Broadway in
2004 and eventually made its Broadway debut in 2011 at the John Golden Theatre: for its
Broadway showing, the play was nominated for five Tony Awards and won three, including the
coveted Best Revival of a Play award (Franklin). In 2014, Kramer adapted the play for film, and
it premiered on HBO with Ryan Murphy directing (Hetrick “Film”). Most recently, The Normal
Heart was revived once more by the National Theatre in 2021. In each of its productions, names
of the dead and state-by-state death tolls are incorporated into the set design, making the play a
mobilized memorial (Rich; Rockwell Group). News stories, HIV statistics, and other texts
recounting the early days of the AIDS crisis are also major focal points of the play’s set design. In

33

its earliest productions, audiences were encouraged to add to the list of the dead making the play
a living memorial (Rich); this was important, particularly at a time when acknowledging the
epidemic was limited, and the prospects of a lasting memorial were non-existent. The Normal
Heart paved the way for theatre to serve two critical roles in addressing AIDS: memorialization
and activism.
Sapphire’s Push garnered literary success quickly, and almost as soon as the novel was
published, she received proposals to adapt the book into film (NPR “Sapphire Releases Graphic
Sequel to ‘Push’”). Thirteen years after Push was published in 1996, the novel was made into the
2009 film Precious. Sapphire eventually agreed to accept director Lee Daniels’s offer and
Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire debuted in theatres in November 2009 backed
by influential Executive Producers Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry (Griffin 182). The film was a
box office success earning over $63 million worldwide on a $10 million budget (Box Office Mojo).
At the 82nd Academy Awards, Precious was nominated for six awards, including Best Picture,
Best Director for Daniels, and Best Actress for Sidibe. Mo'Nique received the award for Best
Supporting Actress, and Geoffrey Fletcher made history as the first African-American to win a
screenplay award at the Oscars by winning for Best Adapted Screenplay (IMDb). In 2011,
Sapphire released the sequel to Push, named The Kid, which follows the life of Precious’s son,
Abdul, after Precious dies of AIDS-related complications (NPR “Sapphire Releases Graphic
Sequel to ‘Push’”).
Published in 2017, Danez Smith’s second poetry collection Don’t Call Us Dead (which
includes “recklessly”) was a poetry finalist in the 2017 National Book Awards (National Book
Foundation). At 29 years of age, Smith became the youngest recipient of the £10,000 Forward
Prize for Don't Call Us Dead, beating out the work of U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith (Flood

34

The Guardian). In 2020, Smith released their third poetry collection, Homie, which won the 2021
Minnesota Book Award for Poetry (“Minnesota Book Award Winners & Finalists”).

35

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