In this episode, Eric sits down with renowned author Peter J. Harris. They discuss his early beginnings; from having been born in Washington D.C, studying journalism at Howard University to eventually pursuing a career as a writer. They discuss his personal life and how he first developed an interest in poetry — meeting influential artists and master poets who inspired him. How poetry served as a vehicle to express himself in order to explore social and personal ideas… and cultivating his own voice as an a writer. His journey as a published author, creating both fictional and non-fiction work and the challenges he’s had to face and overcome along the way. They discuss The Black Man of Happiness Project; a creative, intellectual and artistic exploration that seeks to answer one elemental question: What is a happy Black man?… that examines the state of joy, dignity and happiness that exists in African American life and history in the face of adversity. The various books he has authored and what he has in store for the future!


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Guest Bio: Peter J. Harris is a graduate of Howard University. He is the author of various books, including Safe Arms: 20 Love & Erotic Poems (w/an Ooh Baby Baby moan) (FlowerSong Press, 2022), featuring Spanish translations by Francisco Letelier ; SongAgain (Beyond Baroque Books, 2022); Bless the Ashes (Tia Chucha Press, 2014), which won the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award; The Black Man of Happiness: In Pursuit of My Unalienable Right (The Black Man of Happiness Project, 2014), winner of the American Book Award; and Hand Me My Griot Clothes: The Autobiography of Junior Baby (Black Classic Press, 1993), winner of the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award. Harris and his daughter, Adenike A. Harris, are contributors to Love WITH Accountability: Digging up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse (AK Press, 2019), edited by Aishah Shahidah Simmons.

Harris is the founding director of The Black Man of Happiness Project and writes the blog Wreaking Happiness: A Joyful Living Journal. Harris is a fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at the University of Southern California, a 2023 artist in residence at The Nicholson Project in Washington, D.C., and was the 2018 City of Los Angeles (COLA) Fellow in literary arts. Since 1992, Harris has been a member of the Anansi Writers Workshop at the World Stage in Los Angeles’s Leimert Park.

A native of Washington, D.C., Harris lives in Altadena, California, where he serves as Altadena’s poet laureate editor in chief through 2024, alongside Carla Sameth, who is Altadena’s poet laureate for community events.  

About Eric's Perspective: A podcast series on African American art with Eric Hanks — African American art specialist, owner of the renowned M. Hanks Gallery and commissioner on the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; offers his perspective on African American art through in-depth conversations with fellow art enthusiasts where they discuss the past, present & future of African American art.



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