ABSTRACT
“My involvement in clinical care of adolescents in foster care in New York City introduced me to the challenges to positive ethnic identity and self image for African-American youth. In developing the program for these teens that led me to a career in public health, I discovered the opportunity for engaging them in reading and writing presented by hip hop culture’s embrace of poetry/spoken word. Since I’ve been writing poetry since I was eight years old, this is a natural communication vehicle for me. The feelings and memories of my own youthful experiences during the political and social turbulence of the 1960s and 70s ‘populate’ my poems, and often, I’m told, speak to their own struggles and shifting world view. While An Old Soul with a Young Spirit: Poetry in the Era of Desegregation Recovery was not specifically intended for young audiences, many of my youth-targeted poems were inspired by my observations of and dialogues with my own godson. This is complemented by my artist-collaborator’s capturing of several of his children and grandchildren in the paintings illustrating our book.”
