This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 15, 2012 - Day 133 came in July, with a young man, eyes closed, arms outstretched.
Before this day, every piece of Cbabi Bayoc’s project celebrating black fatherhood, 365 Days with Dad, showed fathers and children together, holding, lifting, smiling. It came between a father and his two sons on the basketball court on day 132 and a grandfather and his grandbaby messily making cookies on day 134.
But on day 133, “When I am a man,” there’s just Jonathon Sterling, eyes closed, arms outstretched, the son of a good man who made bad choices for most of Sterling’s life.
Look, though. Sterling isn’t alone.
On the blue-black shadows of his jacket and pants are three faces. That’s Elliott on Sterling’s right, Uncle Otis on his left, and Brian below. Sterling has known the first man for more than 20 years, is related to the second and, in just a few days, will be the step-son of the third.
None is his father, but all have been fathers to the young Texas poet.
In a YouTube video (not for children or broadcasting at work because of language) Sterling’s mom posted of him from more than three years ago, he steps on the stage at the Neo Soul Lounge and Poetry Reading in Austin, Texas, adjusts the mic, sniffs and steps back.
“Let’s go baby,” comes a man’s voice from the audience.
Then, Sterling begins his poem, “When I am a man.”
“After this dance is over, after my youthful song has long since played, and I am far too raised for you to raise, after my growing days are as ‘not here’ as you always were...”
The lights glow around him as Sterling, who performs as Korim, speaks of his father’s choices, his drug addiction, his life in prison, his absence.
“... Stare in that mirror like the man you tried your best to be, and when mistakes come, don’t dare remember me. Instead, remember when you asked me how to spell my name. Perhaps, remember exactly what you were doing the first birthday missed...”
"...I'm not an accident. I'm not the wallet you left on the bus with my mother's phone number in it. I'm not a bad choice. I'm a good choice you refused to make."
Jo VanZandt sat at the table that night filming her son. She’s filled a YouTube page with his performances. Through his art, she came across Bayoc’s work after another poet tagged a painting on Facebook. She found his page, his work and ordered the piece for her son.
Bayoc honored
This month, the Maternal, Child and Family Health Coalition announced they were giving a community champion award with their "Standing Up For Mothers and Babies" awards to Cbabi Bayoc, "because of the power of his work bringing attention to the important role of father's in children's lives."
In her e-mail to Bayoc, VanZandt writes of the three men who helped raise her son. Elliott, who dated VanZandt for a few years, came into Sterling’s life when he was just a toddler. Even after the relationship ended, he continued his relationship with Sterling, taking him to buy new shoes every year before school began.
Uncle Otis, Sterling’s father’s brother, forged a relationship once he realized that his brother would likely spend his life in and out of jail, VanZandt wrote to Bayoc. Even though he was just a young man himself, Sterling’s uncle sent for him to come visit every summer.
And Brian Francis, who met a 14-year-old Sterling at the mic, has mentored him since, working together on their craft, bringing the young man along on business trips, showing him how men behave as professionals. Later this month, he’ll marry Sterling’s mother.
Each man represents a part of her son’s life, VanZandt says, and is a part of him -- Elliott, a businessman; Uncle Otis, a judge; and Francis, a poet.
“When I am a man,” has hung in Sterling’s home after his mom surprised him with it for his birthday this summer. There he is, he says, his words behind him, three men who raised him smiling back. And it’s fitting. He takes pieces of each of those men, as well as his own father, with him.
Three years ago, Sterling recited his poem, “When I am a man,” at that club in Austin. He’s 23 now, back in Austin, taking a little time away from poetry after years of travel and writing. So much of his work was about struggle and the past, he says. Now he wants to write about the present and the future.
He wants to be a person who grows through struggles, who stays positive, who’s always evolving.
But he’s not a man yet, he says.
“I don’t feel like I am. I do feel like I’m on the way, and I have an idea of what that is.”
In her email to Bayoc, VanZandt included a link to her son’s performance of “When I am a man,” and a more recent one, (again, graphic language warning) filmed a little over a year ago. Sterling ends the poem with this:
“There’s a small space between plain crazy and inhibition, between writing poems and spitttin’, between reciting poems and living ‘em, and I’m dancing there, baby, with a story in my throat and a song in my soul, with my story, that I wrote, dancing in the chest of a beast, screaming through the smoke, waiting for it to clear....”