Hemphill, Essex

NAME: Essex Hemphill

Biography:

Essex Charles Hemphill, a poet and performance artist whose work focused on life as a black homosexual, died on Saturday at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. He was 38 and lived in Philadelphia.

The cause was complications from AIDS, said Wayson R. Jones, a friend.

Mr. Hemphill was born in Chicago and grew up in Washington. He attended the University of Maryland.

His poetry was published in more than a dozen periodicals and several anthologies. He also appeared in films by the director Marlon Riggs, including "Tongues Untied" and "Black Is . . . Black Ain't," in which he recited what Stephen Holden of The New York Times described as "spare, intense verses that affirm both his black and gay identities."

Producers included Mr. Hemphill in the "Culture Wars" episode of "The Question of Equality," a four-part television series. The episode is to be broadcast on Sunday on PBS.

He is survived by his mother, Mantalene Clark Hemphill, of Clinton, Md.; his father, Warren A. Hemphill Sr., of Fort Washington, Md.; three sisters, Tywan Hemphill and Lois Holmes, both of Washington, and Sandra Littlejohn of Lawrenceville, Ga., and a brother, Warren A. Hemphill Jr. of High Point, N.C.

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Date of Birth:

Date of Death (delete if non-applicable): 11/4/1995

Age at Death (delete if non-applicable): 38

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