Assotto Saint

Assotto Saint (October 2, 1957 - June 29, 1994) was a Haitian-born American poet, publisher and performance artist, who was a key figure in LGBT and African-American art and literary culture of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Background Saint was born in Les Cayes, Haiti, on October 2, 1957, as Yves François Lubin. He moved to New York City in 1970, enrolling briefly in a pre-med program at Queens College, After becoming a citizen in 1986, Saint wrote in an autobiographical piece, "The Impossible Black Homosexual (OR Fifty Ways to Become One)," that he is the "one who on the day he naturalized as an American citizen sat naked on the current president's picture & after he was finished called the performance 'bushshit'". and was also a poetry editor for the anthology Other Countries: Black Gay Voices in 1988, and founded Galiens Press to publish work by black gay poets.

Works

as editor The Road Before Us: 100 Gay Black Poets (1991) Here to Dare: 10 Gay Black Poets (1992) Milking Black Bull: 11 Gay Black Poets (1995)

as writer Triple Trouble (1987) Stations (1989) Wishing for Wings (1994) Spells of a Voodoo Doll: The Poems, Fiction, Essays and Plays of Assotto Saint (1996)