    
Afrika
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Username: Afrika
Post Number: 61
Registered: 06-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 26, 2007 - 04:35 pm: | 
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Excerpt from In the WhirlWind by Tichaona Chinyelu
i weave words
like a west african market woman
selling you my vision, my mangoes, my papayas
even my coconuts.
my finished product can be held up to the sun
illuminated, made to shine.
the skins of my poems have been submerged in mud
then laid at the bottom of the baobob tree to dry like mudcloth.
the blood of my poems can be as dry as the sahara
as wet as monsoons
as cutting as a machete in the hands of the mau mau.
i weave blood into my words:
red blood, dried blood, young blood.
an oversaturation of blood decorates my words
makes them pulse red.
my words hang from trees
like the bitterest kind of strange fruit.
my words find the peruvian revolutionaries
murdered while hogtied
and then buried in criminal secrecy.
my words were inspired by rigoberta menchu
i roots rock reggae with my words
have them jamming to the heart beat rhythm
of the warmest music.
the fabric of my words is at its lightest
when they’re in the dancehall or the yard.
my words sweep over people
like the softest caribbean breezes.
my words will have you dreaming of blue skies
white sands and coral reefs
and while you’re dreaming
i weave black people into my words
and i am done.
my finished product can be held up to the sun
illuminated, made to shine.
©2005 Tichaona Chinyelu
In The WhirlWind
Perfect Paperback: 74 pages
Publisher: Whirlwind Publishing; First edition (September 14, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0978935500
ISBN-13: 978-0978935504
Price: $9.45
In the Whirlwind is a poetic storm that frees history from the cages of corruption and puts it in the hands of everyday people. Words are weaved into a new fashion statement that has nothing to do with runways but everything to do with projects!
In the Whirlwind is available at
- Amazon.com
- Authorsden.com
- Oncewritten.com
- Inthewhirlwind.com
- Authorsbookshop.com
Excerpt from Still Living on my Feet
I feel the stress on my shoulders dissipating
as I open up to the quiet
and peace offered as a greeting
from those I love.
Tonight I’m not going to say
no justice/no peace.
Tonight I’m going to say
peace be unto you;
as it is unto me.
Still Living on my Feet
Perfect Paperback: 77 pages
Publisher: Whirlwind Publishing; First edition (May 9, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0978935519
ISBN-13: 978-0978935511
Price: $14.95
Still Living on my Feet is the follow up to Tichaona Chinyelu’s first book, In the Whirlwind, which was rooted in a sense of hard-hitting revolutionary black love. However, in this sophomore effort, Tichaona brings the revolutionary essence from deep within the trough of her Y chromosomes; lacing it with truths, humor and sisterly compassion. Still uncompromising, Tichaona’s overtly articulates the primacy of black women without negating their compliment, black men. Using a sentence she coined a while back; the line of my back needed straightening more than my hair, as her muse, Tichaona retraces the spiritual experience she had in her early twenties revolving around the grandmother she never met. Drawing on her desire to respond righteously, she encapsulated that experience of love and consciousness to produce the progressive, relevant and textured writings of Still Living on my Feet.
Still Living on my Feet is available at
lulu.com
authorsden.com
Inthewhirlwind.com
Tichaona Chinyelu is a poet and author of In The WhirlWind and Still Living on My Feet. She has conducted many interviews which include Artist First and LTH Weekly Show. Tichaona’s poem Weaver Woman is featured on the main page online at Black Poetry. She is the CEO of Whirl Wind Publishing. For further information visit http://www.authorsden.com/tichaona or contact her at t.chinyelu@comcast.net
In The WhirlWind and Still Living on My Feet has been advertised at various sites. Some of them include:
www.blackwritersnetwork.com
http://www.writerscafe.org/books.php?id=920
http://www.writerscafe.org/books.php?id=919
http://www.self-pub.net/cgi-bin/dir/webdata_selfpub.pl?fid=1180120726&query=%26p agenum%3D2%26cgifunction%3DSearch&cgifunction=form
http://www.self-pub.net/cgi-bin/dir/webdata_selfpub.pl?fid=1180121054&query=%26p agenum%3D2%26cgifunction%3DSearch&cgifunction=form
In the News
Tichaona Chinyelu, Poet, Author of In The WhirlWind and Still Living on My Feet & CEO of WhirlWind Publishing
http://pressreleasespider.com/feed34633.aspx
http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200705/1180122498.html
http://www.prlog.org/10018208-tichaona-chinyelu-poet-author-ceo-of-whirlwind-pub lishing.pdf
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