the wrITe FACTOR

The wrITe FACTOR
(written for an English speaking writing class while on Premiere Writer’s, The Emerging Voices of the 21st Century virtual tour--India)
I really, really, really (yes I used 3 reallys) think I can write. I have awards, as well as award winning tags after my books. I have followers and have received writing accolades galore. I’m a guest columnist for the newspaper, had plays I’ve written produced, had things printed all over the world, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera (yup I used 3 etcs…) For every great thing I’ve written there are thousands upon thousands of words that have been burned up in a landfill some where. At 55 I don’t have the same writing leisure that I had at 25 or 35 or 45 for that matter. People, writers, artists are dying all around me. Many of my friends are dying without a written legacy, leaving this earth without anything that will last beyond their graves. Big deal you say, don’t be such a diva you say, don’t take yourself so seriously you say…but look at our world…the beauty as well as the devastation.
Have you seen the Rocky Mountains in bloom at full moon? Have you seen a newborn billygoat? Have you been splashed by the Niagara Falls? Have you ridden a mule or an elephant or a camel? Have you hugged a Heisman Trophy winner? Have you swatted flies off of a dying baby? Have you hooked your brother in the forehead with a fishing rod? Have you kissed Maya Angelou or the Cowardly Lion in the original Wizard of Oz or Bob Hope? I have. But nobody will ever know unless I write about it and write about it well or at least write about it “good”.
I know that a little girl got raped by her father and nobody knows about it but the little girl, her father and me. I know that millions of dollars have ended up in somebody’s pocket instead of going to directly aide the people of Haiti. I know that consistently African American children are getting to High School reading at a 3rd grade level and not knowing that 8 X 7 is 56. I know that one of my female friends got slapped so hard by her husband that it dislocated her jaw but nobody knows that except me, her and her no good lousy husband. I have known that a pastor was sleeping with one of the married women of the church. I know that a little boy in the 5th grade placed on Ritalin is selling his pills to the teenagers on the corner on the way to his elementary school every morning. I know a woman who relocated to Louisville from the Katrina devastation and she only got $200 dollars from all the money given by good hearted folks from around the world for hurricane relief. And once again nobody will ever know unless I write about it and write about it well or at least write about it “good”.
What do you know that the rest of the world needs to know? Nobody needs to know all that stuff you say? You are just stirring up more trouble than its WORTH. Imagine if somebody had written about the Priest’s indiscretions with just one little boy, how many little boys would have been saved. What if I printed in the paper all of the names of the graduating seniors in Kentucky who can’t read the Preamble of the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address or the 23rd Psalms let alone understand what those documents mean. Would the “gap” then become WORTH closing? (Thank God you say, that I’m bound by the student privacy act.)
How many children would not die in Haiti if I had the guts to write Clinton, the Red Cross, Save the Children and Samaritan’s Purse to ask WHERE IS ALL OUR MONEY GOING? What do you know that you should not take to your dying grave? What will you say when God asks, “What did you bring that information with you to heaven for, when you should have left it in writing to be known while you were alive and as a reminder after you were gone?” If that becomes the case for me, then I guess you would have to put on my tombstone. Yolantha Harrison-Pace, 1955-20??. “She will never rest in peace because she was--THE WOMAN WHO NEVER WROTE.”
Yolanthapace@gmail.com
Twitter.com/writerwriter07
www.premierewriters.com
www.capacityInc.org

America--LOOK WHAT I FOUND...

“Come, they are here. Let me show you.”
We step into the entry for Pastor Jules’ bakery. The entry area is barely larger than my front porch, about 25 feet by 12 feet. I am overwhelmed. I count approximately 76 children in various stages of nakedness. Some laps are holding 2 and 3 smaller children. There are probably closer to 90, for the children seem to keep shifting making it hard to get an exact count. I had with me my back pack with treats for the children. But I had only filled it half full, not realizing what I was coming to witness. I began to hand out ‘Lil Debbie Crackers’ knowing that I did not have enough. But to my astonishment every child gets fed. Every time I reached into my back pack there were more crackers. After every child is proudly holding a pack of crackers, to my human amazement there are still crackers in the back pack. I dump the contents on the table used for kneading Pastor Jules’ bread. I dumped out enough crackers for the children to eat again on tomorrow...Oh the miracle of it. I whisper a thank you that is insufficient for such a sufficient God.

The beauty of a land that has never been told

There is so much more to Haiti than the earthquake and what we are being bombarded with on CNN, and I’m living proof!
What happens when church ceases to be just good preachin’ and good sangin’ and good usherin’? What happens when Samson, Moses, Hagar and Miriam become real people that set real examples for an extraordinary life. When scriptures, God’s love and Mercy sticks---then a missionary is born. The stories about Joseph and his coat of many colors (I love fashion) from the pit to the palace--sounds just like me, from the wrong side of the tracks to the Miss America pageant circuit. My life is proof that the Bible is not just a book of fairy tales. HERE’S TO HAITI is a missionary memoir of wrestling, arguing, questioning then listening, partnershipping, and collaborating with God to make a difference in a nation that until January 12 was truly forgotten. What makes a missionary? How do you know you are called? How do you answer when you are called? Honestly, I knew God had dialed the wrong number when he called me. But he kept dialing and dialing and dialing until His ring tone was driving me so crazy that I finally had to pick up. Like Moses, I stuttered horribly, but also like Moses, God has turned me into the voice of His people. Join Marti Tucker of Premiere Writers plummets me, Janice and Stan (2 other brilliant voices) into a wonderful 90 day tour as one of the Top 4 Emerging Voices of the 21st Century. Heeeeeeeere’s to Haiti!!! The beauty of a land that has never ever been told

WORDS

WORDS
an excerpt from my book SHOUT MAMMY SHOUT!!!: where the thunder hides. I love thunder and a recurring theme in this book which I wrote as a follow up to my book on my experiences as Adomestic violence survivor (WING-PLUCKED BUTTERFLY) is my love of thunder. SHOUT MAMMY SHOUT!!! is my victory voice over victimization.

Words don’t work in a vacuum
Sucked in between two cardboard covers
Words are to be kissed out
They explode on the scene of joy
Vomit in a firework of anger.
The unspoken word is just that--
Unspoken non-speak
Illiterate unreading.
Breeding depressed paranoia
Ungraced esteem
Blinded by silence
Untouched by the complimentary
I LOVE YOU
YOU’RE THE GREATEST
I MISS YOU
COME TO SEE ME AGAIN
CAN I DO ANYTHING FOR YOU
Words aren’t just words
They are power
The Word was with God
From the beginning of time
WHO LOVES YOU BABY
LOVE YOU MADLY
I LOVE YOU THIS MUCH
To speak or not to speak
Whether tis nobler
to shut up
Or to share
It is the best of times
And worst of times
Thunder…
Can you hear me?

THE RIVER WITNESS

I watch the news and it depresses me, I have no one to talk to so I needed to get this off of my chest. Where are the Amber alerts and intense Adam searches for the impoverished children of color and underserved populations?:
The River Witness
(To all of the lost, stolen, murdered and unclaimed children of color)
by Kentucky Yo'
My water churned and lashed
Angrily irritated
Trying not to swallow
The tender morsels of flesh
Trying to toss the dark skin
Back to the river bank
But her humanity was
her enemy
Already marred and scarred
In ways unmentionable
If she would only relax and
Let me gently rock away her pain
But she thrashed around desperately
Not wanting to let go
Twelve years of memory
Swallow-shouted “Mamaaaaaa”
But mama couldn’t hear
Mama was working overtime
Earning the unimportant little extras
She would never see
Rock-a-by river girl, rock-a-bye.
Kerscrunch went the crimson painted screwdriver
Tossed out of the devil red Ford truck
I recoiled just enough to reject the unacceptable refuse
Later found by a young boy gone fishing
Slumber river girl, slumber
I will ever treasure your breath in the secrets of my waterfolds
Rest brown river girl, rest.

REVOLUTION

THE REVOLUTION
I am not a girl
When will we ever grow up?
I am 54 years old
I am a WOMAN.

I was at Applebee’s taking lunch with 2 other women. We were all 50 something in age. The young, bored out of his mind, bad postured, still wet behind his multipierced ears, teenaged waiter appeared from thin air. He clutched his order pad with perfectly manicured black nail polished hands glared at the floor with his perfectly smoky, grey-blue eye shadowed orbs and barked “What can I get you girls to drink?”

My cohorts let out girly giggles, one ordered coffee the other ordered a Pepsi. I said nothing. The waiter puffed out a sigh of intolerant impatience which I easily recognized, being the mother of a 15 year old daughter and having groomed a 24 year old likewise through this same teen phase of life.

Another now harder puff of breath, “And you?” He still had not looked up or met any of us eye to eye. Perhaps he just didn’t recognize who was sitting at his table.
“I would…like…you to not call me a girl. What do I have to do…how much more growing up will I have to experience before you call me a woman or a lady?” He looked up finally and I saw that the dark-sided “emo” revolution in him met the same spirit of revolution in me and he apologized. “I’m sorry, mam, what would you have?”

“Ice tea with lemon.” He vanished as quickly as he had arrived.

Silence…silence…and another dose of silence. I saw immediately that I had ruined our “girlie” outing.

“Honestly, what DO I have to do in order to be considered a woman? What size bra do I have to wear? How many children do I have to have nursed? How many sanitary napkins must I have worn? How many soufflé’s, thanksgiving turkeys, casseroles do I have to have cooked? The minute a boy even sees a hair on his face or his armpit or where the sun doesn’t shine, one hair--real or imagined--people, including himself, start calling him ‘A MAN’. When do I--we--get to stop being girls? When do we get to grow up and be women?
“I like being called a girl. It makes me feel young” the oldest of the three of us said with an unconvincing giggle.

“We always call each other girls. Girls call girls--girls” my other friend whined. At 54 I was even younger than her. I was the baby of the group.

I bristled. “That’s why men don’t take us seriously. All of our lives to them we are just little girls, to be taken care of and carted around like trophies. At the board table with all of the big boy manly CEO’s we are just little girls. And when we command womanly attributes in a manly world we are branded ‘bitches’ not women. But a female dog. Or a ’tough cookie’. A dessert mind you, a dessert!!! You spank, chastise, talk down to girls or you come to their rescue, show them off to your other man friends. A man never treats a GIRL as an equal. We need a revolution, a change of thought about ourselves. Domestic violence will never end until we stand up as well as lay down in the bed as women, not girls. I am the revolution, even if I am a revolution of one.”

POOF, the waiter appeared. He immediately placed my tea before me then served the other two. He turned towards me. “What would you--you…ladies like to order?”

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

Who do you think you are? Oprah Winfrey? Angelina Jolie? Madonna? Mother Teresa? No, no, no and no. I am just an ordinary person who stumbled upon an extraordinary circumstance--76 abandoned children living naked like wild animals in the remote mountain villages of Haiti.
Nine years ago God asked me to “GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAINS”--tell of His Love, Mercy and Grace. But now, today, after encountering the multitudes of abandoned, starving and neglected children, God is asking me to “got tell it FROM the mountains”. This is now my quest, to share my testimony in order to bring aide, relief and hope to the helpless. Relief in terms of food, clean water, clothing, and education.
In Haiti I have seen mothers and children who have not eaten for five day stretches at a time. The leaders of the villages beg for assistance. They ask if only a way could be provided for the children to eat twice a week, it would make a huge difference in the mountains.
Clean water is imperative. Approximately 69 out of 100 babies do not make it to the age of two due to unclean water and a lack of nutrition. Malnourished mothers give birth to undernourished and sick babies. Mothers who drink unclean water, produce unclean milk by which to nurse their newborns. Thus the babies die.
The medical needs are astounding. Something as simple as pink eye, because of a lack of medication will guarantee that a child will go blind. Malaria, yellow fever and tuberculosis are common ailments. A lack of vitamin C causes abundant cases of scurvy. Gross iron deficiencies cause weaknesses and dizzy spells to be common amongst the women.
Children are abandoned due to parents who die from aides. Children are left abandoned due to parents who go to the Dominican Republic and Port-au-Prince in hopes of finding work by which to support their families. Because of the desperation of these parents they are easily scammed and taken advantage of. They are often killed or just seem to vanish when they demand payment for labour rendered.
It is my goal to be the voice of the abandoned children. It is my goal to be a voice that will raise funds to provide not just the immediate needs but a voice that will bring a sense of hope. A hope with a strategy to teach the children to become self sufficient and masters of their own destiny.
One summer as I was leaving the mountains of Haiti a little naked abandoned child begged, “Give me something please, Miss, give me something.” The only thing I had left to give him was my pen. As we drove away in a huge cloud of dust the little boy chased after me in all of his naked glory shouting, “BOBO, AMERICA, BOBO!!!” With tears in my heart I turned to my translator and asked what did the boy say. The translator said the little boy was shouting, “KISS, AMERICA, KISS!!!” So I have returned to America to bring you the kisses of a little abandoned boy with a pen from the mountains of Haiti.

To have Yolantha come and share her testimony contact her at yolanthapace@gmail.com