Works and Projects
Ayla's Paradise
Set on the United States Island territory of St. Croix and the eastern U.S., Ayla's Paradise is the provocative story of its heroine, Ayla Walker Johnson, and her triumphs over adversity. At age nine, Ayla surrenders her mother to what will become her own fiercest enemy -- Death.
Abandoned by her father in his grief and forced to carry the burden of taking care of her brothers, she becomes determined to find freedom and longs for love.
The lure of the mainland and its promise of independence and opportunity lead Ayla to escape St. Croix and her responsibilities to begin her own family.
But when she finally finds love and maternal fulfillment her world is torn apart and she must fight to save herself and her children from absolute despondency. At times Ayla is insecure, having been politely discarded by a college sweetheart; at other times, she is feisty, threatening to pluck out the eyes of the woman who would dare take her husband; and still other times, she is passionate, scorching her husband with the "island fire" of their prurient lovemaking.
More than anything, Ayla is a woman of great strength who overcomes distress and ill fortune to emerge victorious and proud.
Jouvert Morning
Jouvert Morning is a collection of poems that centers on the theme of love.
At times, love is enticing and sensuous as in ‘Love You, I do’ and other times love
strangles and kills as in ‘Fallen Sister.’ Included in this collection of poems is ‘So
Much Love,’ which depicts the agape love of God for a suff ering humanity.
Jouvert Morning also illustrates the infi nite nature of love. Love has no beginning
or no end. Time and space cannot contain love. In ‘Virgin Bells,’ the sound of bells
tolling ushers in the longing of love lost long ago.
Love births life and transcends death. I urge you to experience Jouvert Morning
in its attempt to embody this complex emotion we know as love.
Excerpt from Jouvert Morning:
'Fallen Sister'
We wept for you my sister
tears,
salted with your wounds
tears,
clotted by your blood
tears,
cleansed by your incandescent spirit
We knew your fear my sister
haunted, sleepless, demonic
fear,
which crippled your heart,
till it could not breathe
strangled by
his obsessive control
fear,
of not knowing when,
only knowing…
We honor you my sister
fallen comrade,
sister soldier fallen
in the battle of
domestic war
It is not your fault my sister
to choose to
wed and love
honor and obey
to bare your body,
always longing, aching
for elusive love
Now my sister,
your soul is at rest
amid the damp, cold earth
from which you rose
and in the Spring
when the yellow daffodils
emerge from below,
We remember you my sister.
(dedicated to all my fallen sisters, fallen in the line of domestic violence)
