Mindworks Publishing has just released a new collection of poetry and it is my pleasure to introduce it to you. The poetry is vividly enchanting, deeply moving and incredibly inspiring. I so thoroughly enjoyed reading this book that it’s impossible to select just one favorite poem.
Salisa Lynne Grant’s debut collection of poetry, the #1 New Release in African American Poetry for three consecutive days, is a Black mother’s ode to her lost son as much as it is a songbook for Black resilience. Grant does not refrain from allowing readers to bear witness to her pain, her loss, and her intuitive understanding of living through trauma.
In these Black Hands captures the collective “sweets and sours” of Black life and illustrates empowering passages of Black love. Calling on the power and precedents from Anna Julia Cooper to Ntozake Shange, from Zora Neale Hurston to the Ferguson Uprising, Grant tenderly acknowledges the fires that have forged her people as well as the light that lives within them. Grant’s poems provide a looking glass and a legend for the joyful, eternal, and harrowing stories that fill our lives.
The Muslimah Speaks Poetry Anthology
The Muslimah Speaks: Her Voice, Her Spirit is now once again available for purchase on Amazon.com. This beautiful assembly of poetic voices came about as the result of a labor of love several years ago when I was a member of The Muslimah Writers Alliance. I’ve updated the cover art, but otherwise, the content remains exactly the same as the first edition. I had shelved the project a few years ago when deciding whether I could maintain Mindworks Publishing as a business, but it was with a heavy heart, and it never settled well within me. We had worked so hard to produce this collection but I had become so worried about the business that I lost sight of the blessings. Life has taught me many lessons since then and it is with great joy and much faith that I have re-published this book.
This particular work not only features poems written by Muslim women from many countries around the world and from different walks of life, but we’ve also included verses from the Abrahamic scriptures as inspiration, guidance, and reminders to the readers. It was my intention more than five years ago to compile a work that could serve as an uplifting, informative and inspirational contribution to the vast expanse of poetry anthologies and my heart has not changed. May it be of benefit.
Knocking on the window of my soul is Janette Grant’s latest collection of poetry and this volume may be the most personal and revealing of her published collections thus far. Written following the death of her mother, many of the poems delve deeply into emotionally charged topics such as loss, the soul, the meaning of life, and the necessity of hope and optimism when faced with life’s challenges. She shares reflections on her childhood as a black girl growing up in urban America during the height of the crack epidemic, on love and womanhood, and on faith and patience during adversity. Her poems explore concepts of ancestry, legacy, and toxic masculinity in light of the recent “Time’s Up” movement with the unique perspective of an African American Muslim woman, and with a steadfastness in faith that encourages forward thinking and positive change.
"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers"