History dressed up in the glow of love’s kiss turned grief into beauty.

Poetry, like jazz, is one of those dazzling diamonds of creative industry that help human beings make sense out of the comedies and tragedies that contextualize our lives.

Michael Jackson National African American Art Examiner Series

Then came the healing time, hearts started to shine, soul felt so fine, oh what a freeing time it was.

You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you have always been.

From her gospel-singing mother Cissy Houston, her legendary pop-diva cousin Dionne Warwick, and her Queen of Soul godmother Aretha Franklin, she [Whitney Houston] inherited gifts for skillfully interpreting lyrics and endowing them with new depth and jeweled nuance.

When a reader enters the pages of a book of poetry, he or she enters a world where dreams transform the past into knowledge made applicable to the present, and where visions shape the present into extraordinary possibilities for the future.