By day, Mark Anthony Thomas is the president and CEO of the Greater Baltimore Committee, an organization shaping Baltimore’s economic development. Now he wants Baltimore to recognize he’s a poet with stories to tell outside the boardroom. Speaking with Thomas before watching the film helped me learn about his early interest in storytelling and where Baltimore fits into his story.
“I don’t foresee leaving Baltimore and going to work in another city,” says Thomas about planting roots in town. On January 10, Thomas’ short film “In Need of Seawater” premiered at SNF Parkway and is now available for streaming. The 26-minute film is the second short in a trilogy of works Thomas hopes illustrate his life story and serve as evidence of Black men’s potential.
The trilogy is a self-motivated project in personal storytelling. Thomas’ artistry is driven by the support he received from family, friends, and mentors growing up in the Atlanta area. His first memories of writing were when he was 14 years old. “I remember looking at my grandmother’s obituary, and there was a poem. I remember wishing I’d written that poem,” says Thomas.
From that moment of grief and regret, he grew, eventually becoming the first Black editor-in-chief of The Red & Black, the University of Georgia’s independent newspaper. “I felt like I was on this path to become a rising star,” Thomas says about his time managing his 70-person newsroom. After graduating from UGA, the long road to Baltimore led him to jobs across the country with roles leading him to New York, Los Angeles, and, most recently, Pittsburgh. Here in Baltimore, unlike in other cities, Thomas feels ready to dive back into art and culture as he did in his youth in Atlanta.
“In Need of Seawater” is successful in pulling back the executive curtain and letting the audience know more about Thomas. The film’s larger political perspective, however, leaves me wanting. Early poems referencing W.E.B. Du Bois and Nikki Giovanni, plus footage of ACT UP protests during the AIDS crisis, signal radical political consciousness, but by the credits I’m unsure where Thomas stands on radicalism.
“Historically, [Pittsburgh] is very similar to Baltimore as great cities that went through [economic] disruption. I learned a lot about that during my time in Pittsburgh,” he says. Time in Pittsburgh gave Thomas an up-close look at the city centered in the work of his biggest influence, August Wilson. “I was struck in his articulation of the power of writing — especially for Black men — being therapy,” notes Thomas on his time meeting one of America’s most renowned playwrights.
“On one side, in journalism, you’re creating a lot of different forms of media. I was always fascinated with documentary journalism,” Thomas told Baltimore Beat. His first short film, “Folded Whispers,” directed by Jordon Rooney, is a 25-minute chronicle of his first poetry performance in 15 years. Similar to “In Need of Seawater,” “Folded Whispers” delivers a cinematic rendering of the poet’s performance before an intimate audience, blended with experimental footage.
A photo of Thomas beside August Wilson on Morehouse’s campus appears early in “In Need of Seawater.” That photo is one of many memories shared with Thomas’ film audience as the poet collages together years of performances and photos. The documentary’s structure is refreshing and experimental, grounded in the idea that Thomas is sharing his poems at an intimate dinner party. One of my favorite facts about the film’s structure is that Thomas’ inspiration for the concept is Janet Jackson’s “That’s The Way Love Goes” music video. In his version of the intimate dinner party setup, many of the works shared come from his second poetry collection, “The Poetic Repercussion” (2004).
As the film progresses, Thomas moves through the house reciting poems for the 20 or so guests seated around his host’s warmly lit residence. In sharing these poems, Thomas reminisces on his experience with child abandonment, racism, and coming of age as a gay man in the aftermath of the AIDS epidemic. The vignettes shared between poems weave together the flashbacks and reenactments peppered throughout the documentary.
In the end, “In Need of Seawater” is a beautifully shot chronicle of Thomas’ poetic work. The editing and frame of the present-day dinner party performance work well together as viewers are ushered through past and present with archival footage and brief reimaginings accompanying Thomas’ performance. Ziaire Mann is a captivating star as young Mark Anthony. Mann’s acting performance holds joy and melancholy in balance while also delivering stunning, fluid choreography set to Thomas’ voiceover. The lone moment where Mann and Thomas share screentime is the most visually and emotionally striking in the film. The scene is marked beautifully by Thomas’ forlorn stare into the night sky.
“In Need of Seawater” is successful in pulling back the executive curtain and letting the audience know more about Thomas. The film’s larger political perspective, however, leaves me wanting. Early poems reference W.E.B. Du Bois and Nikki Giovanni and include footage of ACT UP protests during the AIDS crisis. The implied impact, I assume, is that these references signal alignment between the thinkers referenced and Thomas’ own political consciousness, but by the credits I’m unclear where Thomas stands on the radical politics he alludes to. These references to major figures and 1980s protests carry the bulk of the weight of explaining Thomas’ politics, and the result feels too vague to cement any sort of political ideology.
Through multiple poems, poverty is cited as a condition to overcome, and the powerful are named as architects of injustice, yet I’m left wondering what present-day Thomas makes of the relationship between poverty, Black childhood, public health, and power as a powerful person. Simply put: How do the poet and the executive reconcile their shared flesh, and what political principles ground them? And that question is not easily resolved for a poet who helms an organization with a $5 million operating budget. By the film’s close, I’m wondering what poems Mark Anthony Thomas would write today if he were not a very public figure tasked with thinking alongside powerful decision makers and policy builders.