mission

People are like words, each with its own purpose. Each has an inner and outer life, a life of thought, interpretation, composition and a life of action. I have made my life about words in hopes of making it about people. My poems come from a love for the world and from a desire to see it transformed. I want to talk to you about pain. I want to talk to you about beauty. I want to talk to you about guilt, faith, failure. I want to talk to you about joy with the wish that we may experience a little more of it here.

I believe the artist's job is not just to make good art but to live a life fearlessly and unapologetically in pursuit of her ideals. We are our life’s project. “In order to write beautifully, we must first be beautiful.” Becoming beautiful requires diligent examination of the world and the self, indictment of the world and the self, and finally forgiveness of the world and the self in hopes of transformation. An artist's work is just one tool in the service of that pursuit. 

While I will always consider myself  POET first and foremost, poetry is just the beginning of the contributions that I want to make to this world. There is more that needs discussing, fleshing out, uncovering, and poetry is only one medium. In addition to being a poet, I am also a teacher and scholar centering my non-creative work around the issues of spirituality & sexuality, women's empowerment, and racial/cultural reconciliation through workshops, panels, and discussion series. It is not enough to express via words. We must also equip via action, education and resources.