I didn’t know him personally. But I knew the sound of his voice. I knew the softness he carried in his face even when he played hard-edged characters. I knew the steadiness with which he showed up in his work—not as spectacle, but as soul. And when I heard about his passing, something in me dropped. The kind of ache that comes when a lighthouse goes out. Not with a bang. Just a quiet blink. And suddenly, you’re squinting into the dark.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner wasn’t just an actor. He was a poet first. That truth alone says everything. His first love was the page. The rhythm. The breath between syllables. In a world obsessed with what you can prove, what you can produce, what you can perform—he chose poetry. That says something about the kind of man he was before the lights and the credits and the cameras. And to me, that’s the part I want to hold.

Because there are many people who become famous, but very few who carry their fame like a basin. Gently. Purposefully. With both hands. Malcolm did. Like Chadwick Boseman, he understood the weight of being seen, and he carried it like prayer. Quietly. Without the need for noise or permission. They both made a different kind of Black manhood visible. Not the spectacle of resistance, but the steady embodiment of it. There’s a kind of grace that doesn’t perform. It just holds. Both men understood that. Carried it. Made art out of it.

(Selfless ~ Spoken Word (2015) ~ malcolm-jamal warner's miles long)

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to grieve a man you never met but somehow felt known by. Malcolm didn’t just speak. He saw. And he wrote in a way that made us feel seen too.

There’s something holy about a man who understands the value of gentleness. Something sacred about someone who doesn’t have to shout to be heard. That was Malcolm. His poetry wasn’t separate from his life—it was braided through it. You could hear it in how he spoke. In the cadence of his characters. In the stillness between his sentences. He didn’t just say lines. He layered them.

As a Black woman. As a poet. As someone currently shaping a two-part poetry collection, I feel his absence in a way I didn’t expect. Because poets recognize each other. Not just on the page, but in the posture. In the way we walk through this world already half-split open. Always gathering beauty and ache at the same time. It’s like losing an anchor I didn’t realize I had. Like realizing someone had been holding the door open behind you and now it’s swinging in the wind.

There aren’t many people who have made emotional depth safe for Black artists, especially Black men. Most are told to armor up. Be loud. Be funny. Be strong. But never be still. Never be soft. Malcolm refused that. He stood in the middle of this world and let himself be tender. And for that, I will always be grateful. Because the ripple effect of that kind of bravery isn’t always visible. But it’s felt. Deeply.

He didn’t need headlines. He needed truth. And he spoke it, whether in verse or scene or silence. His love for poetry wasn’t just a side note. It was the spine. And if you go back, you can feel it. In his jazz work. In his live readings. In the way he wrapped language around grief, around love, around the complications of Blackness in America. He saw us. And more than that, he honored us.

I keep thinking about legacy these days. About how the people who change the world aren’t always the ones on billboards. Sometimes they’re the ones who built the damn foundation under your feet. Malcolm was that. A builder. Of stories. Of safety. Of possibility.

And now, like with Chadwick, we’re left with the ache of what will never be, even as we hold the gift of what already was. That’s the paradox of loss. It doesn’t ask permission. It just enters the room and sits with you. So you learn to make space. You write through it. You weep into it. You live anyway. Because to do otherwise would be to waste the seed he left in your hands.

Some people shine in a way that isn’t loud. It’s a hum. A bass note under the chaos. A light under the door. Malcolm-Jamal Warner was that. A hum. A light. A line of poetry so carefully delivered you almost missed it. But once you heard it, you never forgot.

He is not gone. Not really. He is skyward now. Returned to the ether where all true poetry is stored. Where men like him and Chadwick sit in the hush between stars, watching. Holding space. Whispering lines into our bones when we forget who we are.

This one is for the men who made it safe to feel. To soften. To speak. This one is for Malcolm. A poet first. A lighthouse always.

Rest well, beloved. We were listening.

Enjoy, TEDx with Malcolm-Jamal Warner.

Tasha Monroe