Scholarships!

I made this list a while ago for a couple of my college bound friends seeking scholarships and grants! Click away!!!

http://www.fastweb.com/
http://www.jackierobinson.org/
http://www.uncf.org/forstudents/scholarship.asp
http://www.scholarships.com/scholarship-search.aspx (tailored search)
http://apps.collegeboard.com/cbsearch_ss/welcome.jsp (tailored search)
http://www.kaarme.com/find_scholarships

With these sites, you have to dig a little, but you can find what you need off the beaten path:
http://www.studentscholarshipsearch.com/
http://www.scholarsite.com/
http://www.freschinfo.com/search.cfm
http://scholarships.collegetoolkit.com/Scholarship/Main.aspx

Another New Author!!

Hi all! I'd like to you consider an author friend of mine for your next purchase ^_^ below are the details and a short bio. If you haven't purchased mine yet, go ahead and click the link for both of our books! Support the lil guys before they get big =) Thanks in advance!

Pronouns

By

 JoVonna Rodriguez

Pronouns categorizes life through writing, which is often separated by visions and experience. Pronouns is a collection of poetry and prose describing every aspect of the human existence in relation to emotions, and highlighting every struggle and success. Pronouns is something everyone can feel.

Based on the principle that all life stories can be interchangeable, Pronouns explores each avenue, situation, and event. It starts off with a personal chapter introducing the author’s inspirations to write and poems that describe her life. Pronouns explores a different theme in each chapter, based on the definition of a pronoun: She, Him, Us, Them, and We.

Pronouns is a showcase of passion, covering an array of issues including abuse, sex, artistry, incarceration, love, political activism, sex, community collectiveness, youth, nature, and truth. It pays homage to Shatoya Currie (Girl X), 2009 Taser related deaths, incarcerated men, and our community. 

About the Author

JoVonna Rodriguez is a vessel for words and emotions. She is a native New Yorker who now resides in Atlanta, Georgia since graduating from Emory University. She is AmeriCorps alum whose commitment to service is now bridged with being a life long educator. She makes sure to incorporate creative and innovative ways of learning how to love reading and writing in her classroom. JoVonna is releasing her first book of poetry and prose entitled, Pronouns. For more on JoVonna Rodriguez and Pronouns check her out at: www.joskidiesel.com, @JoskiDiesel or joskidiesel@yahoo.com. 

Life's Realities

You know the secrets that lie between my folds….and my ears.

And when someone asked what makes me smile,

All I could think was, “His hand touching my chin.”

Because, as I’ve said before, I find you in everything me.

And my biggest disappointment, yet most important realization to date 

Has been that I will have some of my best moments, without you,

But they won’t be my best until I share them with you

And you tell me how proud you are and how much you love me.

Then all the previous moments that built up to that moment 

Will start outshining the moment that I’m telling you about,

Because without those times when you built me up and pushed me on

When you encouraged me and told me that you had no doubts about me…

I would not be where I am now, without you believing in me.

Not saying that I wouldn’t be great, just that I wouldn’t be here.

And the more that we go on together, pushing and pulling, simultaneous and not,

I find that the secret is: not trying to figure out the secret, because it’s different for everyone.

I can’t compare us to them, and she to me, and you to he, because they are not we.

But can I get a tiny glimpse of my fantasies mixed within our reality?

While no one ever has time for the in between things that mix and bind

Our yesteryear to forevermore; someone has to make the connections.

So while you make time to make the plans and constantly go hard in the paint

For the future that I dare to dream about and you strive your hardest to create,

I won’t take for granted the times that we share within each other’s hearts and presence

If you try to remember not to take for granted how I stitch together the seams between them.

Copyright © 2011 Natasha Guy

Writing myself out of a funk

I stole some sunshine last week. I put it in my back pocket and forgot about it. Then my sister tried to borrow my jeans. She said they didn’t fit her like they should, shrugged them off and left them hanging on my newel post. And there they sat until laundry day. Which is when I ran out of jeans to wear, except for those. I threw them on with my oldest shirt and when I got to the front door with my hands full of dirty laundry and Tide detergent I just stared. I stared out at the mud puddles pooling around my retro sport car’s tires that needed replacing, the dark clouds hiding bumpy oak roots that would trip me, and the rain that would turn my candy curled locks into a fro. Then, as if by magic, I remembered the little piece of sunshine that still sat in my back pocket for such a day as this. I reached in deep and pulled out a candid picture of just your smile. Then all I saw were rainbows <3

Copyright © 2011 Natasha Guy

So I watched For Colored Girls

If you loved it, you prolly won't like my take in this poem. But I could care less. I watched and this is what bubbled up at the end. That movie...smh...well you'll see my opinion.

To Whom It May Concern

I see my shattered reflection in the same mirror that I punched yesterday

‘Cause I couldn’t stand the sight of my own soul

And closing my eyes was still a mirror

Because the back of my eyelids still screamed that it was me.

Then you turned around and shoved the same thing back down my throat.

In a movie, no less, that was supposed to be entertainment;

Yet it was really a chronicle of abuse with no end to the torment.

Not even a helpline number at the end to refer me to any hand at all.

You cannot tell me that you made it to inform other people,

Or that you wanted me to see myself on the screen

And come to some kind of realization of the mistakes that I continually make.

The folks in the community are the main ones that watched it.

My sister and I, we KNOW the issues.

Who wants to see themselves on screen with no solution and left in the same mess?

No hope of return or redemption or even a ladder to where you are;

Just a flashlight shone down from your mighty pedestals above.

So if you want to make a movie that will MOVE folks,

Then go ahead and lead the way to somewhere better.

Let us visit your promise land and taste the grapes not born from wrath.

Don’t just pan over the same path we’ve all tread!

Because I, we, she are all too familiar with

How we keep returning to the shattered mirror day after day

And it’s still there staring back at me…

Broken and shattered but not torn down, not replaced.

And it still functions,

But not in the way that it’s supposed to.

But I can still do my make up if I lean to the side and twist my face up

To fit in the largest piece of the cracked glass that STILL reflects my brokenness.

So with all due respect to your blood bought stardom and honors,

Don’t sit on your high horse and point at my issues

As if when you come home, you don’t come in the community bathroom behind me

And squint and tilt your head until you find the piece of mirror that makes you look best!

Because in the limelight you may prance like the finest Arabian show horse,

But back in the stables, you still pull the same cart that you

Hitched to the little sister who had to portray a whore in your movie

Just to see the underside of your pedestals.

Copyright ©2011 Natasha Guy

I Wish

If I could find a magic eraser,

One to rub you out completely,

I would be a happy woman.

All I’d have to do is blow a little

To clear the residue you left behind;

No smudges left to mar my paper.

Instead I choose to write in pen,

Unwilling to use even erasable ink.

It never fully disappears anyway.

White out still stands out like a black out,

Even when expertly applied between the lines.

The only solution to complete freedom is burning the paper.

I refuse to let you make everything else worth losing though.

Besides, don’t they usually say we learn from our mistakes?

I won’t allow you to matter enough to change every else.

As a result, my erroneous ways stay with me.

People like you never really make their exit.

So there you sit, like an acne scar on my face.

Copyright © 2011 Natasha Guy

FREE music and spoken word!

Freedom's Ink has released an awesome 16 track FREE dl collection from multiple talented Spoken Word and Music artists. It would behoove you to click and get your own copy. Your ears will thank you!

Submerged Soul Vol. 1

Copyright © 2011 Natasha Guy