still parts way here { god in flight

I was born & raised in Danville, VA where I graduated from Averett College in 1994. Moving to Washington, DC to pursue my interest as a poet, I spent two years in George Mason University’s Masters of Fine Arts in Poetry program. In the fall of 1994, I wrote the three poems which proved to be a major shift in my poetry. The poems proved to be a watershed later that winter, summer, and into the following fall.

During my three semesters of study with Carolyn Forché and Susan Tichy, I had written a set of over one hundred poems that had a unique voice that spoke to the discourse between our physical desires, our spiritual quests, & our heart’s longing for connection. Each poem identified an antagonistic search for love/sex/god in a world dominated by prized physical desire of an “other.” I collected a set of them for my thesis class in the fall of 1995. The collection was well received by my classmates and my professor and the critiques brought further insight to both my writing and the collection. After the course was over, I put away the collection.

As I continued writing, the newer poems that emerged were quite separate from my thesis, so much in fact that two additional manuscripts were conceived during the summer vacation that year. In the fall 1996, I left decided not to return to GMU but opted to work on my poetry in a non-academic environment while looking for a full time job. Read more