by Michael B. Carroll Jr.

Songs of an Indomitable Spirit is the follow-up to Carroll’s 2019 chapbook, The Dichotomy Between Light & Dark. This beautiful, full-length collection is a testament to Carroll’s enduring strength and tenacity, consisting of 31 pieces that explore the peaks and valleys of his life, leaving no topic deemed “taboo.” Songs examines various social and personal relationships forged throughout Carroll’s life, using a musical cadence and the rhythm of sound to deliver a powerful collection that explores themes, such as nostalgia, social injustice, strife, sexuality, love, faith and renewed hope. The common thread throughout is emotional intelligence. How much can one ultimately endure? How does one navigate the challenges of interpersonal relationships? And most importantly, how does one respond to life’s staggering melodies? These are the Songs of an Indomitable Spirit.

PROCEEDS FROM PRE-ORDERS WERE DONATED TO MINNESOTA FREEDOM FUND!

Each of us can make a difference to help stop the unjust incarceration of minorities and the unjustified, brutal force during arrest that has become all too common.

About the Author

Michael B. Carroll Jr. is a graduate of West Chester University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science degree in Professional Studies (Health Science/Psychology dual minor). He is a native of Philadelphia, PA and his poems have appeared in publications such as Maudlin House, Wingless Dreamer, and Cathexis Northwest Press. Carroll’s work was recently showcased in Kosmos Quarterly: journal of global transformation as a “Featured Poet.”

He refers to his greatest aspirations in life as M&M Dreams, which represents his undying love for music and the practice of medicine. Music continues to inspire him to live, love and create, passionately—while his desire to practice medicine keeps him emotionally connected to his humanity. When not writing poetry, songs, or studying medicine, Carroll enjoys spending time with his family and friends, and pretending he’s a part of Buffy’s crime-fighting, “Scooby Gang.”

INSTAGRAM: @sirdukeofwagadu

Early Praise for Songs of an Indomitable Spirit:

Songs of an Indomitable Spirit opens with a proclamation: I swear there’s a vision on the tip/ of my tongue…/ sitting, standing, tap-dancing on/ the edge, daring to be savored (“Visions”). What readers will savor in Michael B. Carroll, Jr.’s second book is the inspiring journey the poet takes them on as he chases delight in the streets…and danc[es], rough through the pain (“Interlude: Reminiscing about the days”).

The tension between delight and pain permeates poems that feature a young black man striving to live in a world where, on one hand, the screaming voices of our African American mothers,/ [are] enough to make a love song cry (“I’m not mad, I’m angry”); where, on the other, fifty shades of God (“Hootin’ ‘n’ Hollerin’ (reprise)”) strengthen his faith.

It’s a world in which the poet challenges himself to discard the limiting labels history has imposed on him. When he asks himself, What if you decided to forsake all others and chose only to love you? (“Choices”), we cheer for that indomitable spirit daring to define itself. Along the way, we grow to admire the poet who wishes to be remembered as a strong man who wrote poems that helped him gather the strength to finally break free (“Victory”).

—Carolyn Martin, Ph.D., poetry editor
Kosmos Quarterly: journal of global transformation

There is an exciting fearlessness to Michael Carroll’s poetry. Strikingly fresh language, vivid and bold, and fresh, jazzy rhythms join to convey a profundity of vision. In Carroll’s poems, we can find joy, love, humor, anger, regret. But, above all, we see a young and accomplished poet with the courage to question society’s norms; the strength to explore psychological depths, both his own and others’; while retaining and sharing the wonder, the uniqueness, and the value of the lived moment.

—Thomas F. Hinchcliffe, PhD.,
professor of English: Psychoeducational Processes

There is a fine essence of an ethereal hue grounded in Michael Carroll’s inkwell that speaks to the heritage of timelessness in our surroundings . . .

—silent lotus

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by Joanne Godley

Picking Scabs from the Body History, opens with an ode to a library wherein a nine-year-old girl is invited in to read. She quickly discovers, in the book she picks up (We Charge Genocide:  The Crime of Government Against the Negro People), a historical narrative fraught with injustices that “bristles the hair on my fearful arms,” and sees photos of “lynching victims” and “treed men swing with hung heads/ mouths stuffed full.”

Poems in the collection exposes the dark underbelly of history—the sore spots or scabs of history. There is a poem relating another genocide—this time of the American native peoples. Yet another poem describes the theft of genetic material from Henrietta Lacks that spawned a multibillion-dollar stem cell industry, the injustices meted out to Haiti—the first nation to cast off enslavement. Godley includes poems from her own life experiences: from witnessing a coup d’état in Cote d’Ivoire to a personal tryst with members of the Black Panther Party to the rebellion in the 1970’s in Detroit, Michigan.

These are poems of witness, of protest and of empowerment. They are commentaries on the mis-written truths about race, violence and injustice and of the targeted peoples involved reclaiming their place in history.

JOANNE GENEROUSLY DONATED HER PROCEEDS FROM PRE-ORDERS FOR PICKING SCABS FROM THE BODY HISTORY WERE DONATED TO MINNESOTA FREEDOM FUND!

Each of us can make a difference to help stop the unjust incarceration of minorities and the unjustified, brutal force during arrest that has become all too common. Thank you to all of those who supported Joanne’s book and raising money for this worthwhile cause.

About the Author

Joanne Godley is a practicing physician, poet and writer whose work is informed by social injustices. She is a native of Detroit residing in Alexandria, Virginia. She is convinced she is a descendant of nomads because traveling is one of her great passions (along with art collecting, salsa dancing and cycling). She spent time working in Africa as a Peace Corps medical officer.

Godley’s lyric memoir was a finalist for the Kore Press Memoir contest and the Sunshots Press Prose Contest, and it received honorable mentions in the Deborah Tall Lyric Essay Book contest and the National Woman’s Book Association Contest. She completed an online novel writing certification program through Stanford University. Her first novel was ranked finalist in Kimbilio’s annual novel writing contest.

Three of her poems were published in an anthology. A flash creative nonfiction work was recently published in the Kenyon Review blog and a flash noir fiction piece appears on the Akashiac Press blog, Mondays are Murder. Godley attended the  Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference in 2018 and the Kenyon Writers Workshop in 2019. She is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writing Association, the Author’s Guild and the NWBA.

Book Launch / Readings:

The Poetry Box LIVE – September Edition

Early Praise for Picking Scabs from the Body History:

Dr. Joanne Godley’s Picking Scabs from the Body History is a collection of poems whose pulse is powered by its ability to both document and archive the complexity of the African diasporic experience. Polyvocal in narration, Picking Scabs from the Body History considers the blatant and pernicious consequences of slavery and its enduring legacy, most clearly manifested through the dispossession of a people’s culture and selfhood. With its increasing zoom from the landscape of history and into the marrow of family stories, Dr. Godley brings the abstract natures of justice and injustice to eye level—it is in these moments that the reader sees the inextricability of the personal and the political. It is in these moments that the reader also witnesses the brilliance of survival and self-possession. Unflinching in its indictment of the human condition, one of this collection’s greatest strengths is its honesty, one that is prismatic in its manifold expressions of exactitude, lyricism, passion, and erudition. This is the type of honesty that at its core, invites us to examine how we might hold the value of human life and dignity with all that it is owed—these poems challenge us to imagine and model a more radical, selfless, inclusive, and incandescent form of love.

—Yalie Kamara, author of When the Living Sing
and A Brief Biography of My Name

From the opening scene in a child’s library through historical and personal locations that remind, inform, and gut punch with stark imagery and pared-down language, Joanne Godley’s Picking Scabs from the Body History tracks the movement of racialized bodies through American history. A fiercely attuned chronicle of the violence and collective trauma of these United States, its “indelible truths” enact corporeality and rage through the thrum of rhythm and repetition and the lush compounding of sounds. It digs down, mapping through language the “surly root formations” of our very foundation. Through these poems we are shown back to ourselves and beseeched to “erase the disaster that has been America” to “run run fly while there is time still.” A masterful chapbook and absolute necessary read.

—Elizabeth J. Colen, author of What Weaponry and The Green Condition

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by Michael B. Carroll Jr.

These poems speak to struggle stemming from both the internal and the external—a collection deeply rooted in the human experience, life philosophies, identity politics, faith, shame, pride, trials, and triumph. The common thread throughout is identity and asks: Who are we? Why are we made to sometimes feel “sub-human?” How does this feeling impact our overall wellness from a physical, emotional, social, and spiritual point-of-view? And most importantly, how do we strive to see the light in people and in ourselves, despite such turmoil—this dichotomy between light and dark.

About the Author

Michael B. Carroll Jr. is a graduate of West Chester University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Professional Studies (Health Science / Psychology dual minor). He is a native of Philadelphia, PA and has published creative work in The Esthetic Apostle Literary Magazine. Michael’s work has also been featured in the inaugural issue of Cathexis Northwest Press.

He refers to his greatest aspirations in life as M&M Dreams, which represent his immutable love for both music and the practice of medicine. Music continues to inspire him to live, love, and create, passionately—while his desire to someday practice medicine keeps him emotionally connected to his humanity. When not writing poetry, songs or studying medicine, he enjoys spending time with his family and friends and pretending he’s a sommelier.

Michael can be found on Instagram: @sirdukeofwagadu.

What They’re Saying…

Arranged as if a program for a symphony, the music in this collection jumps right off the page. I know that it is too often said of poems that the rhythm leaves the page, but I dare you to read “Toe Tappin’” and not find yourself doing as the title suggests. Never before have I been so taken by onomatopoeia—do yourself a favor and not simply read this collection, but listen.

— C. M. Tollefson, Cathexis Northwest Press; High Shelf Press

Michael Carroll has an ear for poetry. As if Coltrane and Marcus Aurelius shared their secrets, Carroll’s meditations express free and bold cathartic verse. Whether he is hearing a new calling from “Behind the Georgian Marble Walls” or embracing who he is in “The Unveiling of the Cloak,” Carroll unmistakably delivers rhythm and truth.

— Samuel Griffin, founder, The Esthetic Apostle

The Dichotomy Between Light & Dark is an attempt to fill the distance between people while “living in the endless chorus of prayer” that makes up so much of our modern world—prayers for the living, prayers for the dead, prayers for the oppressed, prayers for the everyday. This marvelous collection navigates the desires of humanity with rhythm, repetition, and grace, demonstrating an ambitious orchestration of form on the page.

— J. David, poetry editor, Flypaper Magazine

Book Launch Readings

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by Jimmie Ware

In Gospel Gone Blues, Jimmie Ware speaks directly from her soul to share her poetic truth—thoughts on the human condition alongside an intimate look into her personal life. Employing her talents as an acclaimed spoken word performer, she weaves the raw, the tender, the not-always-pretty side of life with the pulse of jazz and blues as a backdrop for her captivating poems.

About the Author

Jimmie Ware is truly a Poetic Soul, which was the name of her award winning Anchorage and Chicago television show. She is founder of the Black Feather Poets, which honors her cultural backgrounds. Growing up in the Windy City was definitely a concrete jungle she survived. Jimmie ultimately became a freelance writer, community organizer, inspirational speaker, performance poet and advocate for suicide awareness with her Reasons2Live PSA campaign in Alaska. Her nonprofit organization was officially honored by Mayor Mark Begich, proclaiming February 27th as Black Feather Poet’s Day in Anchorage.

Jimmie’s poems and short stories have been published in numerous books including:  Chicken Soup for the Soul, Uptown Déjà vu, River Tales, Southwest Persona Poems, Vox Poetica and Open My Eyes, Open My Soul which was the brainchild of Dr. Martin Luther King’s daughter Yolanda King and Elodia Tate.

She has donated her time and talent to help victims of abuse, domestic violence, youth and women’s empowerment. She is also an author for The Good Men Project online publication.

For Jimmie, poetry is like the air she breathes and a very necessary healing source for today’s world and societal ills.

What They’re Saying…

Jimmie Ware’s Gospel Gone Blues is a lyrical-poetic offering of and to those spaces between praise, pleasure and pain in which we all inhabit. These short, thoughtful poems are a wise woman’s recognition that true wisdom comes with scars—and that the light that finds us after the darkest night is most beautiful when seen through the prism of tears. Ware’s Gospel Gone Blues is an homage to the sensual aspects of loving and loss that only jazz can capture, and is itself, a musical tribute to those who have offered the poet their musical magic that has helped her, and many of us, transform our sorrows into symphonies and our howls into hymns!

~ Regie Gibson, literary performer poet, author, educator

I fell in love the first time I heard her. Jimmie Ware has a magical way of weaving life into art and art into action. Her sweet words fall on your soul like the softest feathers, soothing any distress right out of your days.

~ J. Ivy, award-winning poet, author, actor

Jimmie Ware is enjoying the soundtrack of her life as she glimpses strikingly intimate moments and guides you from heartbreak to heroism. Gospel Gone Blues features Jimmie’s relentless optimism and emotional honesty while escaping the blues, embracing the staccato of jazz and dancing through the tears with a playlist of passion, purpose, and personality that only Jimmie could bring to readers with such depth, honesty and energy.”

~ Stacy Eden, slam artist, poet

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