Spoken

Spoken is the epitome of my poetry and 2017—for those of us who experienced a magnitude of shut doors and watched the nation’s division widen. During this time, as I was resetting my career aspirations, I was reminded of poetry. It never left me, but I stop capturing it. I stopped writing it and reciting it, so it was within me but slowing fading away. I was fortunate to have two people that reminded me—my sister and my dear friend and fellow poet Ricky Lowe (he has a poetry book btw, click here).

First, my sister inquired because of a letter that she wrote herself 10 years ago. Now, that would be 13 years ago. She mentioned that I recited a poem, met Maya Angelou, and asked her future self, “is my sister still doing poetry?”Then, Rico Lowe, commented on one of those infamous Facebook throwback posts of a poem I wrote in 2013 and asked the same question.

What I’ve realized is that simple questions sometimes lead to deep reflections. So I thought, what would it be? What would I be trying to say? My failures? My setbacks? All the no’s, but best wishes, all the not today but someday? And then I realized in this reflection was a poem that was waiting to come from me—Spoken.

Spoken has been featured in Huffington Post’s poetry blog, OutSpeak during National Poetry Month in 2017. Mostly because I sent them an email and said it should be featured on their page, and they featured it. Thank you, OutSpeak.