To the Warrior Women of Wellspring

Had the privilege of sharing this poem at the Wellspring Living Gala this past Saturday. Wellspring Living is an organization here in Atlanta that provides a home and recovery place for girls and women who are coming out of sex trafficking. When I first heard about the issue of sex trafficking I assumed it was happening overseas, but through Wellspring I found out that underage girls are being trafficked overseas and here in the states, with Atlanta being one of the biggest trafficking centers in the US. I never could have imagined that sex trafficking is happening right here in counties and on streets I visit all the time. 

I have been volunteering at Wellspring for four years or so doing a poetry writing session with the girls there who are between 12 and 17 years old. Two graduates of Wellspring were honored with a Butterfly Award at the Gala and I shared this poem to honor them and the many women who are survivors of sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. I wrote many of these lines while in session with the girls as we wrote about shoes, faith, starting over, and what we would be like if we could be superheroes. :) The young women I write with are brilliant and they continue to inspire me. They are my sheroes. 

Warrior Women of Wellspring

  

To the brave warrior women of Wellspring

Life has left you with stripes

But they are not scars

They are war paint

A reminder that you are more than a survivor

You are living inspiration

Breaking out of a cocoon

Stretching wings to embrace the sky and fly

You are brave

Carrying courage with you always

Wearing resilience around your shoulders

Taking every step with tenacity

Let your determination 

To not let your future be defined by your past remind you

That you don’t have to fit into a mold anyone builds for you

That you don’t have to walk this journey alone

You are loved, you are worthy

That in the arms of God we all have a place to belong

Use your voice

Speak your truth

Love yourself

Be yourself

Be an original

Be unique

Continue to grow, hope, succeed

Believe until your dreams come true

Be who God created you to be

To the brave warrior women of wellspring

I look up to you

Thank you for teaching me what strength looks like

For showing me how to stretch my own wings and learn to fly  

How to Write a Poem

When I was a little girl I watched my grandmothers cook. They never used a recipe book. To me, it seemed like magic. A poof of flour, a whisk, the whir of a beater and an amazing cake appeared. When I got older and realized I only knew how to cook spaghetti and meat loaf, I called on my Grandma Bert to teach me this magic. She tried to write things down but it was hard for her to remember exact measurements of things. She could mainly tell me based on feel, touch or smell. So I went into the kitchen with her and followed her instructions as she watched over my shoulder, taste-testing along the way.

I didn’t understand how she could cook this way without leveled cups of flour, without exact fourths of a teaspoon. Now as a poet I understand this. The page is my kitchen and how the words appear there is a bit of magic I sometimes have a hard time explaining. A poof of rhyme, a whisk of rhythm and a poem seems to just appear. I also realize this isn’t helpful for the person who wants to learn how to discern and recreate this magic. So like my grandma, I will try to take myself to the very beginning in hope that anyone who would like to can write a poem and make their own magic too.

All cooks, the same as all writers, are different. Here’s my approach to writing a poem.

1.    Decide on form.

Are you writing a haiku? Sonnet? Sestina? Limerick? Free verse? Rap verse? Spoken word poem? Each of these forms, no matter how rigid or freewheeling have rules. In the creation of art, you break a rule better when you first learn how to follow it.

2.    Choose a subject.

Pick a word randomly out of a dictionary. Ask your Facebook or twitter friends to send you words or topics. Start with a question you’ve always wanted to know the answer to.

3.    Clear your mind.If you are a person who needs quiet to write, silence as much of the distractions around you as you can. If you need a bit of noise, try a coffee place, library, bookstore, or whatever world you can create for yourself with your headphones on.

4.    Use your senses.

When you think of your subject matter, what images, aromas, sounds, textures come to your mind? Describe them, keeping in mind the form you’ve chosen. Write as if your poem is an experience you are trying to describe to someone who has never been there.  

5.    Write. Revise. Rewrite.

Do this until your idea is as complete as your brain can accomplish that day. Some days this may happen in one day. For me sometimes this process takes weeks or months. Sometimes I start an idea and set it aside, coming back to it months or years later.

6.    Read.

Once you have written something you feel slightly proud of but mostly nervous about it, read it aloud to someone else. That someone could be an open mic audience or it could be a family member or friend, just needs to be someone that has different ears from your own.

Hopefully, after completing these steps you will experience a little bit of magic.

How do you write poems?

Finishing a Book is Writing Boot Camp

Prior to writing Breaking Old Rhythms, I wrote as needed. Finishing a poem for a recording project, video or event was the catalyst that forced me to nail myself to the seat of some coffeehouse where I hid out from anyone I knew, checked Twitter and Facebook, filed my fingernails and mentally organized my taxes until I finally gave up on procrastinating and wrote something.

I learned writing a book doesn’t quite work like that. Author friends encouraged me to set up an amount of words a day to write, so I did. Some days those words arrived on the page swimmingly well. Other days they escaped slowly and I painfully watched as if my laptop screen were an annoying leaky faucet.

Here are some tips I learned from writing a book on how to complete a longer writing project:

1.     Set a schedule.

Do this because most days you won’t want to. If you wait to write until you feel like it, you’ll end up with a stained deck, scrubbed floorboards, lint free jackets, plates and plates of eaten cupcakes, but probably not a finished piece of writing. Schedule the days you will write, how long you will write, and how many words you will write that day. Give yourself a week or two of grace before your deadline. Do this because sometimes life happens, you get the world’s worst cold, have a family crisis, or have an urgent project that comes up.

Do this also because even if none of these things happen you will more than likely have a day or two that you will come up with some reason why you mustn’t write that day. Maybe you have to practice your English accent for your Lord Grantham Halloween costume, even though Halloween is several months away. Maybe you suddenly realize you never alphabetized the cleaning products underneath your sink. These are the things writers do to skirt away from writing, because we’re basically afraid we’re gonna suck. Allow yourself the grace to have a couple of “oh no what if I suck?!” days, but also remember almost every first draft sucks so get over it and write! Deadlines don’t care as much about whether or not your writing sucks, they just want you to finish so your writing will eventually not suck.

2.     Remove distractions.

Put your phone on airplane mode. Turn off TweetDeck. Do not use this time to figure out how to use Pinterest. Stop calling long lost friends you haven’t talked to since you were three years old. Oh wait, those were my distractions/procrastination tools. Ahem, in your case get away from anything that will distract you from getting the job done. If it’s social networking, turn off the internet mode on your phone or computer. If it’s people, go and write in a place where no one will talk to you. Like a library or a monastery, the opposite of the bar in Cheers.

For me, I have to leave home to write most of the time. When I was single I did this because I was likely to watch TV or take a nap instead of write. Now that I’m married I do this because I will think of all sorts of random things to talk to my husband about since we both have an office at home. Whatever you do, go someplace where all you can do is write. After you get your words in for the day you can read Wikipedia bios, tweet anonymous quotes, watch Cheers or call your friend from preschool.

3.     Trust in the process of drafting.

My first draft felt like a failure to me, because I had such big ideas for what I wanted to write but I couldn’t get the words to live up to my idea. This is the beauty of writing. To be a writer, doesn’t mean you immediately write something genius, it means you disciplined yourself to keep sharpening what you’d written until you got it just right. Don’t be afraid to think, write, rewrite, think, rewrite, cry, rewrite, think, rewrite. Rewriting done well can lead to writing that really doesn’t suck.

Now, as I have written this and had the audacity to post it online for anyone to read, you will have to remind me of this. Let’s keep each other accountable so the ideas inside of us will get written.

The Importance of the Book Proposal

Okay in my last blog, I waxed poetic about ugly crying and the pay off of finishing the thing that’s in your heart to start. For this post, I’m gonna be more practical, since I’ve had a few people ask me where to start as it relates to publishing a book.

Let me start off by saying I am by no means a veteran, I’m just sharing here the practical lessons I learned as a first-timer writing a non-fiction book while the experience is fresh on my mind and before I get distracted gearing up for this week’s episode of Scandal and Downton Abbey. Practicing “his Lordship” in my best English accent and rehearsing my Olivia Pope walk really does take a lot of work.

Here are a few thoughts that may help those of you with book dreams in your heart. Complete a book proposal.

Whether you’ve decided to self-publish or submit your book to a publisher, a book proposal will help you organize your ideas and see if they are really book length. Many people come and talk to me after events with book ideas burning inside of them. They decide this is the time. They are just going to start writing. Without a book proposal, you may be likely to get disillusioned with what seems like an awesome idea from the onset. You may find yourself getting lost in what was your point in the first place.

A couple of my friends bugged, bothered, and encouraged me until I finally gave in and completed my book proposal. Here’s why a book proposal can help you:

1.     A book proposal is like a business plan for your book. The first part will include a chapter outline, description of your demographic, what qualifies you to write the book, and what makes your book different from other books on the market on the same topic. The second part is two sample chapters of your book.

2.     If you can’t finish the proposal, you will know either your idea is more the length of an article than a book or that your idea has been written about well and you have nothing fresh to add to the topic. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. You could either turn your book idea into an article or blog, or you can move on from that idea and work on another one.

3.     Your book proposal will help you discover who your market is. Before you publish a book, you want to have some sort of readership in mind, other than your mom or best friend.

4.     A book proposal will provide you with a sketch with which you can write your book. It’s much easier to write a book when you have a sketch or outline of some sort. As writers we would love for you to believe that we sit down at our MacBook (I mean all writers use Apple products, right? Right?!) and extemporaneously come up with immediate and unplanned genius for our readers (I get some cool points for using extemporaneously in a sentence, right? Right?!). But this is a myth, a legend, don’t believe the hype. Every great writer you know sat down at the MacBook, notebook, typewriter with a plan. A book proposal will force you to have one.

5.     If you decide to go with a publisher, many publishers are not looking for your finished non-fiction manuscript. They want a proposal because they want a sample of your writing and they want to know how you plan to access readers and succeed in the current market.

6.     For me, writing my book proposal was a microcosm of the book writing process. It required discipline, it wrung me out of creative energy and ideas, it brought out all of my worst procrastination tendencies, but it was so worth finishing. How you complete your book proposal is a fraction of the experience you will have actually writing a book.

Michael Hyatt posted an e-book on How to Write a Winning Book Proposal. It really helped me with the first draft of my proposal.

So with all those tips said, when are you gonna finish that proposal and stop procrastinating?! Writers don’t procrastinate, right? Right?!

A Few Thoughts on Writing a Book

I’ve been writing on a regular basis since I was twelve years old. In all my years of school, studying as an English major, writing vocationally, I never met a writing project that beat me…until I had to turn in the first draft of my book.

I was supposed to turn in 40,000 words. At the end of a few months I had arrived at a meager 27,000, and that felt like someone had squeezed the words out of my veins. I clicked send and emailed the draft to my editor. My husband walked in and smiled.

“You finished your book! Let’s go celebrate. We can do anything you want.”

I disintegrated into a shoulder shaking, ugly cry. Turns out tears was the way I wanted to celebrate.

I shared this with friend, songwriter, and fellow author Candi Pearson Shelton and she told me:

“The difference between poems and songs is the pay off. You know how you feel when you know a poem is finished and you’ve done your best with it?”

I nodded.

“You’ll eventually feel that way about your book. It’s just gonna take a whole lot longer.”

We laughed. And I breathed a sigh of relief that maybe my tears didn’t mean I was a failure. Candi was right. By my third draft, some feedback from friends and writers I respected, plus edits and challenging questions from a great editor, I finally felt like writing a book hadn’t beaten me. I arrived at my word count and felt good about what I’d written.

I had to excavate my past, dig beneath my stories, get honest, and focus more on doing the best I could than comparing myself to anyone else. Breaking Old Rhythms is a result of several coffee house conversations, a few embarrassing moments, honest prayers, and a few stanzas of poetry weaved in.

Whether it’s writing a book, completing a degree, raising kids, starting a business, caring for a loved one, or just simply getting up out of bed and living every day to its fullest, don’t let it beat you. Keep showing up until you figure out its rhythm. Learn to dance with it, until it brings out the best in you.

Next blog: The Importance of the Book Proposal

Breaking Old Rhythms - Book Trailer

I am less than 2 months away from the release of my first non-fiction book Breaking Old Rhythms: Answering the Call of a Creative God on March 1! Thanks to the wonderful peeps at Skor Inc. here is the book trailer. Check it out!

Video by: Brody Harper and Ryan Slaughter of Skor Inc.
Music by: Matt "DJ Opdiggy" Owen
Book Publisher: Intervarsity Press - Crescendo

Amena Answers Your Questions Part 3

My third Question and Answer blog featuring questions from Angeley Crawford on Facebook. 

Question 1: What is "Christian" Poetry?

Question 2: How do I find a writers' group?

Question 3: What are your thoughts on dealing with the hurt or envy that comes with interracial dating?

Have more questions? Find me on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.

Finding Wonder: Margaret Feinberg's Book Wonderstruck

My friend, Margaret Feinberg, has a new book and 7-session DVD Bible study called Wonderstruck: Awaken to the Nearness of God (releasing Christmas Day)—a personal invitation for you to toss back the covers, climb out of bed, and drink in the fullness of life.

Through Wonderstruck, you’ll learn how to recognize the presence of God in the midst of your routine, unearth extraordinary moments on ordinary days, develop a renewed passion for God, identify what’s holding you back in prayer, and discover joy in knowing you’re wildly loved.

Wonder isn’t a word I often use. Even as a kid I was a bit of a skeptic. I stopped believing in Santa by the time I was six, because I surmised that Jolly Old Saint Nick wasn’t coming to my grandma’s, where I spent most Christmases. First, because where she lived was near the ‘hood and second because she had no chimney and I hadn’t heard many stories about Santa walking in through front doors in the ‘hood with presents and reindeer.

In the same way that the magic of believing in Santa was lost on my six year old self, a sense of wonder or amazement can still slip by me today. Thankfully, in Margaret’s book, she isn’t writing about a mythical character, magic, or make believe, she is writing about the Creator of all things, the Savior of the world, and when we take the time to really experience his creation, it makes us believe.

My husband and I recently moved. Our old apartment was full of imposing walls and closed off spaces, but our new place is all open space and archways, with two large windows opening up to the living room and dining room. We moved in just as the summer was ending, and found ourselves mesmerized by the path of trees we could see swaying in front of our windows each morning.

One morning, I woke up and caught a glimpse of the most beautiful purples and oranges as the sun began to rise. All this time we’ve been living here I never knew such a view was possible from our window. This is what Margaret’s book Wonderstruck invites you to do: take in a new view, see a sunrise through a wall of trees, remember God’s faithfulness during tough times, lift your skepticism and be struck with wonder right where you are.

Follow Margaret’s snarky, funny, and inspirational posts on Twitter, Facebook, or her blog. You can learn more about this great book by visiting www.margaretfeinberg.com/wonderstruck where she’s offering some crazy promos right now with up to $300 of free stuff. I’ve seen the book for as low as $7.95 ($14.99 retail) on Barnes & Noble for all you savvy shoppers.

So where have you seen the wonder of God in your life?  

Amena Answers Your Questions Part 2

My second Question and Answer blog featuring questions from Grant Moyo and Penny Hunter on Facebook.

My literary calling has not been exposed in spite of acknowledgement, was it not meant to happen? -- Grant Moyo

How do you view the role of women in the church - is their voice for other women only? -- Penny Hunter

Have more questions? Find me on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.

Amena Answers Your Questions Part 1

My first Question and Answer blog featuring questions from @YaniMeansPeace on Twitter and John Bomboy on Facebook.

How Do You Book Your Gigs? -- @YaniMeansPeace

What is Your Take on Using "Choice Language" in Christian Music? -- John Bomboy

Have more questions? Find me on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.

Christmas Poem Videos, Script, and Download

Through a partnership with 4Thought Media, I have released two new Christmas poem videos: "Shine His Light" and "Unlikely Situations." These two are available for download at 4ThoughtMedia.com.

Below the Script for "Shine His Light" and "Unlikely Situations" is available for purchase as well. We had some broken links previously so if you have any trouble downloading this, please email info@amenabrown.com.

Thank you and Merry Christmas!

AMENA BROWN - SHINE HIS LIGHT (CHRISTMAS) SCRIPT


AMENA BROWN - CHRISTMAS POEM SCRIPT

poem: for the girls at wellspring

started scribbling this poem after beginning a monthly writing session at the wellspring living victory program, a home for girls who have been victims of sex trafficking, exploitation, and abuse. you can check out more info and support the work of wellspring living here: http://www.wellspringliving.org.


for the girls at wellspring


these women
have seen more storms before the age of 16 than I have known in all my years
these girls were forced to be women
responsibility and sexuality and violation forced down their throats and in between their legs
they had no silver spoon
were never spoon fed anything except miniscule amounts of love

one writes
of a dark alley
watching the ravaging of another girl
wishing for superheroes or God to save her
another writes
of her proud Latina heritage
the rhythm of her people dancing in the consonants of her poetry
another writes
of anger pent up, folded, rolled and stuffed
that now must be opened up, examined and freed

I feel inadequate
what do I have to teach these women?
I am a student in their classroom of how to survive
how to not let life beat you down
how to crucify and resurrect

I write and talk with them
a few are bubbly attention-getters
some are quietly ruminating
some listen to and watch me but refuse to talk or scribble
some sleep through the entire session

this is no ordinary classroom
I work with who I can
whisper silent blessings and gratitude over those who albeit quiet are here and alive to tell of it

words and stories
sit in the stomachs of women like these
crawl up their windpipe
tire, fatigue and then rest in the throat
eventually, the weary words make it to the tongue, to ink
and this is the day I hope for these precious ones
a place to be free and unedited

poem: letter to the emcee

so it's national poetry month. figured i could at least post one poem before the month runs out. here's one of the newest ones i've written. i wrote this poem at a hip hop show while watching a wack emcee perform. goes to show that wackness can be its own form of inspiration. :)

letter to the emcee

i don't want your
wack rap lines
don't want your tired metaphors and limp analogies
sick of your false manhood and your oversexuality disguised as womanhood
do not want to see your button down unbuttoned three buttons down
do not prefer your short shorts and skirts
showing your breasts, thighs, chest, biceps, doesn't entice me
nor does it make your rhymes have skill
I don't care about your endorsements
about your mixtape download remix
your jesus piece doesn't matter to me
your rented cars and fronted g4 flights bore me
could care less about your record deal, your advance, the units you pushed, the gold platinum you sold
don't care about your crew, your set, your peeps, your hoes
don't want to hear about your sexual exploits
about your tongue's run in with bottles and cans
how much money has changed hands
how much tapping and banging and smashing
about your high class vacations and exclusive hotels
so what?
oh well
i. don't. care.

what i like
what i wanna see you do
is stand on the corner in your own hood
shove one hand into the pocket of your hoodie
place one hand on your chest
pull that hood over your head and ears
and listen to your heart
listen to the streets you came from
tell me a story i've never heard
tell me a story i've heard a thousand times and help me see it through new eyes
break out your spiral notebook
scrawl. scribble. write.
until your hand cramps up
until the sun comes up
until your lunch break is over
until your boss catches you
until all the words in your head rest
so you can catch shuteye for a few hours to wake up and do it all again

rhyme.
while you restock the shelves at walmart
after you put the kids to bed
while your math teacher lectures equations
unspool the lines wound in your head
hold them in your mouth until you can give them a place to play

i don't need you to be pretty or rich or sexy or gangsta or hood
i need you to be an artist
a master of ceremony
who finds the break beat
laying rhymes into it like so much mortar and brick
building verse and chorus with the technique of a sculptor

freestyle
like your family's mouths depended on it
like the beat beats in your chest
like hip hop runs through your capillaries
give me music to listen to
prove to me that keep it real is no cliche
make fresh and dope and cool more meaningful than words marketing companies throw on ads and tshirts
tell me the hook so i can say it after you
so i can raise one hand in the air and keep it there

i'll be waiting for you
with an old set of headphones, a boombox and an mpc
please
for me
just be an emcee.

The Artist's Dance

*I originally wrote this article for CatalystSpace.com and thought I'd repost it here.

When was the last time you danced? – Cee-lo Green

A couple of years ago I took dance lessons, learned a dance that requires you to simultaneously count steps, feel the music, and follow your partner. Found myself thinking less about the steps as my feet intuitively learned what to do. Then, life got busy. I was too tired, too preoccupied with knocking off my to do list to make time for dancing. By the time I tried the dance again, my feet were clueless, slow going like a child’s brain struggling to remember vocabulary words on the first day of school after a summer spent with water slides and ice cream cones.

The artistic journey is like this for many of us. We wrote, painted, danced, sang, played, until we were spent. Then, responsibility got the best of us. We “grew up” became “responsible.” Too busy for dancing.

Your desire to artistically dance will not go away. The Creator of creativity put it there. The question is will you come back to the dance floor. Will you endure the process of your feet clumsily rediscovering what to do?

All artists fear the same thing. Whether it’s a canvas, page, sheet music, or a blinking cursor, we detest the blank. It’s the time when all these creepy, negative voices start peeling out of the darkness like dancers from the Thriller music video taunting you with all of the reasons why no one is ever going to read, listen to, watch, care about whatever it is you're doing. Sometimes in the humdrum of life, jobs, responsibility, we shy away from being artists, because it forces us to reckon with what we’re not doing with the gifts God gave us.

As much as you fear failing and having no audience but your mom who thinks everything you make is amazing, you want the journey, the stumble, to feel the fear blowing hard against your skin. You want to lean into it and do what’s in your heart. The following are some guideposts to help get those creepy Thriller dancers with their negativity, put in their proper place so you can get your art to dancing again.

Cultivate a Creative Place.
Despite the propaganda pushed by many artists, inspiration is not a spontaneous, effortless experience. Creativity is akin to discipline, a muscle that must be worked and stretched to prevent atrophy. Train your creative brain to know when and how to open up and be creative. I can find a creative space anywhere as long as I have pen, page, and John Coltrane. What are your tools of the trade? Where can you go consistently and often to find your creative place?

Giving way to the art inside you will require solitude. Even Jesus had a place where he withdrew to be with God, alone. Prayer and creativity coexist. In the same way that you can find a solitary place to connect with your Creator, acclimating your soul to opening up to him, you can learn the rhythm of creativity straight from the Creator. Find a place to connect with God and bring your instrument of choice.

Hone your craft. When Solomon was getting ready to build the temple he didn’t just call for people who were passionate about what they did, he called for master artisans (2 Chronicles 2:5-7).

Stay connected with the arts scene.
In the book of Acts when Paul was making his case to the people of Athens about how near God was to them, about how they lived, moved, and could find their being in him, he quoted one of their poets. This is an excellent example of why it’s important to know “the poets” or influential voices in the culture where you are living life and sharing Jesus. The only way Paul was able to quote their poets was to listen to them.

Stay current with your arts scene through social networking, blogging, and checking out artistic events in your local city. Try engaging with art that is opposite of the genre you normally work in.

Shine is not a bling reference, nor is this about creating buzz for yourself. This is about shining a Jesus light, the kind of light that never goes out. In a room full of lamps, more light doesn’t so much matter. In a place with only shadow, light rescues. God wants art to introduce all of us to him, in whatever way he chooses to do this.

I love how Paul says it here, “Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night…” (Phillippians 2:14-16, The Message)

How can you engage more with people who may not believe like you? With other artists and creative people?

At some point this week, find your solitary place and grab a pen, paintbrush, instrument, or piece of choreography. Yes you’ll be clumsy at first. You’ll stumble around until you find your way, but eventually you’ll dance again.

Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life. – Paul (Galatians 6:5)

Christmas Poem Script Available for Download!

Some of you have asked if I have poems based on holiday themes. I don't have a poem for every holiday but I do have one for Christmas. The script is available for download as well as an mp3. I hope this is helpful especially for those of you planning services and events. Let me know how it goes!

AMENA BROWN - CHRISTMAS POEM SCRIPT

AMENA BROWN - CHRISTMAS POEM DOWNLOAD

Poem: God Bless Mom

happy mother's day to my wonderful mom, jeanne brown. thank you for your constant love, support, and encouragement. your determination, dedication and love for God inspires me! i love you!


God Bless Mom

My mother read books to the swollen stomach that would become me
Read about what to expect when you’re expecting
About disciples, apostles, prophets, sinners and saints
Until her semi-colon burst
Sending amniotic vowels and consonants to splitting apart
The time between my sentences grew less than five minutes apart
My paragraph had arrived

Her margins stretched ten sonometers wide
So quickly that there would be no time for epidural or explanation
She must breathe, push, labor count to ten
And then count ten fingers and ten toes
Traced her fingers along the lines of
Little ears little nose little mouth little eyes

From the light of touch lamp on nightstand
She read me golden books
Sat me down in peter’s chair
Kicked me rhymes from the berenstein bears
We put our hands together and said our prayers
That God would bless teddy ruxpin
Barbie and ken
That God would bless Sydney, my one-eyed stuffed animal koala bear best friend
That God would bless daddy and grandma,
Right before mom showed me where the wild things are

She read to me until I was reading her to sleep
Words given to me by the number 5 and the letter a on sesame street
And Oh the places I would go
With Sam, green eggs and ham in tow
Searching for golden tickets in Roald Dahl’s prose
I wanted to float on giant peaches with James
Read Beverly Cleary, Ramona and Beezus until I was Amena the Brave
I never went through that stage of slipping my little girl feet into my mom’s heels to play dress up
I just wanted to read her library when I grew up
Hoping I could be one of Mufaro’s beautiful daughters
Maybe one day, turn the pages of Tar Baby
She took me to find my roots in the handshake of Alex Haley
Taught me to love the stale paper scent of the library
To treasure books, cards, and stationary

Years later she joins me at kitchen table,
Talking womanhood over the scent of earl gray tea
Taking in all the mystery, life’s and Walter Mosley’s
Trading Baldwin and Baraka
Singing Songs of Solomon
Exchanging journals, wisdom and pens
She reminds me with skillful subtlety that sometimes this is where the sidewalk ends
That many storylines come to an end only for better ones to begin
Life is a page-turner and you should write your own plot twists
Words are written to be read even if the only reader is you
Many will call themselves writers, but there’s only one Author who knows the end from the beginning
Sometimes the hardest and best thing you’ll ever do in your life is trust him
Never forget to pay close attention to your character
Remember that people are characters, they come and go but never discount them
People are characters and your story won’t happen without them

There is light in the attic, at the end of tunnels, and in her eyes
So, tonight before I shut off nightstand light
I’ll pray for God to bless mom and I’ll read myself to sleep

Poem: Roots & Wings

in follow-up to "chocolate mista" and in celebration of national poetry month, here is the poem "roots & wings" that chronicles my first time performing my own poetry in public. the video footage is from my performance of "roots and wings" live at java monkey coffeehouse in decatur, ga in 2008 and is also featured on the live at java monkey cd. enjoy. :)



Roots & Wings

I didn’t mean to do it
I mean they sold me out
As soon he asked were there any poets in the house
I was the one who got fingerpointed
Pushed and shoved to the center of a carpet stage
A tiny bookstore, Montgomery, Alabama
It was called Roots and Wings
I was probably standing somewhere between Nikki Giovanni’s love poems and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
I think I recalled Nathan McCall, because it definitely made me wanna holla
When I looked out at the 50 some odd of my classmates faces staring back at me
While I nervously tried my photographic memory
Trying to recall the words on a page I’d written over and over again
But never imagined I’d say out loud in front of anyone

I couldn’t believe that anybody was on the edge of their seat listening to me
I was only seventeen
Somewhere I found the courage and it carried me line for line until the end
And after all the hugs and smiles from friends
I was still shaking
That’s when I knew this was real
That words have wings
That they are kind of like birds but mostly like children
Who you groom and raise
You hope you’ve shaped them well
That a sky that has no limits will receive them
That someday somebody will take them home
Call them their own
That they will find a place to belong

I came from a line where righteousness ran through the blood like sugar and rolling stone daddies
And maybe the people who were pushing me had been here long before my classmates
Maybe my grandparents and their preacher sisters and brothers were pushing me too
They fed me parables and I acquired a taste for truth
They stood behind pulpits and I stand behind this mic
Just like them I have to get on my knees and hum prayers when words don’t suffice
Sing the hymns that can’t be found in hymnbooks
Learn to lean on everlasting arms and hold fast to the words that only God can write on hearts
These hands never knew picking cotton
But the hands that did knew how to spin stories
Knew how to sew quilts of memory so I could read my family history in a stitch
Every time my grandmother speaks I realize that words have roots
That they are kind of like trees but mostly like seeds
Who you groom and raise
You hope you plant them well
That fertile ground will receive them
That they will find a place to stand and stretch their meaning
That someday somebody will take them home
Call them their own
That they will find a place to belong

Words keep teaching me to dream
Keep reminding me that God listens when I sing
That’s how I know this is real
And I am still shaking.

Poem: Chocolate Mista

it's national poetry month! last year i tried writing a poem a day...i only made it to day 7. lol this year i'm posting some of my favorite poetry quotes on facebook and i'm posting the work of some of my favorite poets on twitter. i am also digging some poems out of the archives and thought it would be fitting to start with this one. i'll be posting a difference archive once a week this month so check back for more shenanigans. :)

"chocolate mista" is the first performance poem i ever wrote. i was seventeen and had probably recently watched love jones. lol i performed this piece for the first time during spring break of my senior year in high school in a bookstore called roots & wings. wrote a poem about that too so maybe i'll post that one later this month also. :D haven't performed this piece since college so i figured it can now see the light of day. here goes... ;)


Chocolate Mista

The crowd is alive and thrives
On the sound that is music to our ears and water to our souls.
My eyes scanned panoramically and danced dynamically
At the sight of so many chocolate faces.
I whirled and twirled
Like a childhood ballerina to the music that is wind to my wings
And I bumped into him.

The Nubian prince I dreamed of,
The chocolate mista. I have seen love
Come and go for some,
But his eyes and my eyes
They met like the sun and the moon exchanging high fives
Just before it is the moon's time to shine.
My, my, could his beauty and mine
Have intertwined
Like held hands!
But I looked away.

Avoiding the vision that just encompassed me
By looking too deep
Into the chocolate eyes
Of this chocolate mista
As chocolate mist
Began to fall over the heads of all of us.
God would solve for us,
The mystery of this man
With a plan
To understand me.
Not just romance me but have some truth to his game.
He caught my eyes like a wild butterfly held captive in the hand,
And like the band
The terms that flowed from his lips mingled and hobnobbed to become one voice comprised of all the parts of life
As he said...Hello.

What could my reply be but the same?
And names exchanged
Made conversation easy.
It pleased me
That he was not intimidated by my dark skin
Nor the soft angel within.

We could stand in the midst of the mist,
And if an honest answer is like being kissed
He kissed me gently each time he said a word.
I thought of so many things to say but lost my nerve.
My heartbeat could not be heard
Above the rejoicing of the people around us.
They may have clowned us,
But the mist drowned us
In a tingling feeling that can only be described as dejavu.

Where were you, Boo?
In all my lonely moments and the happy ones,
So I could share your smile,
But my style
Is much too chill for that.
So, I strolled through the crowd as the fall of the mist ended,
Befriended
By this chocolate mista
Who complemented this dark sista
Nicely.

Good Man Month 2010

Today is the first day of Good Man Month. This month also marks Black History Month and Valentine’s Day. As with any celebration that’s worthwhile, whether it’s love, history, culture, or celebrating the people that have made an impact on your life, it’s something that should be celebrated more than just one particular day or month. But the celebration is a start at remembering and reminding ourselves of what's important.

Black History Month
So this month if you’re short on black history facts…say, have no idea who Gordon Parks is, have never read the Crispus Attucks story, or don’t know much about King Tut outside of the pyramids (and this is just to name a few)…get your google on and send links on what you learned.

Every Day is The 14th – Andre Benjamin
As far as Valentine’s Day goes, if you have someone in your life that love or at least like a whole lot…spend time with them, do something special. I really have a closed ear to that whole this-is-just-a-hallmark-holiday argument, and girl-you-know-I-care-about-you-what-does-it-matter-if-I-show-it-to-you-on-Valentine’s-Day or if-he-doesn’t buy-me-_____-I’m-through-with-him. Stop that. If you really care about someone any day is a perfect excuse to express that to them. So stop making excuses, stop focusing only on yourself, and show and tell them how you feel…hallmark holiday or not. End of soapbox.

Good Man Month Challenge
Now…onto my feature celebration…this marks the fourth annual celebration of Good Man Month and this year I’m celebrating facebook and twitter style. Each day I will be highlighting just a few of the good men who have impacted my life personally, there are honestly too many to highlight them all. My challenge to you is to highlight the good men you know. Write them a letter, leave them a voicemail, send them a text, shout them out on twitter or facebook. Let them know they are appreciated.

Why celebrate good men? Because good men don’t get enough press. Because you hear enough stories about cheating men, lying men, trifling men and not enough headlines about men who love their wives, take care of their children, serve their community, carry themselves with respect, open doors, pull out chairs, and live their lives for something bigger than themselves.

Homework Assignment
Ladies…find at least 10 good men you know and tell them you appreciate them.

Fellas…commit at least 10 random acts of goodness.

Follow Good Man Month developments on twitter with this hashtag #goodmanmonth.

Now get to celebrating! ☺