Biography

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Virginia State University, Virginia, United States
Dr. Latorial Faison is an award-winning African American poet, author, professor, veteran military spouse, and mother born in Southampton County, VA. She’s authored & edited 16 books, including Nursery Rhymes in Black, Blood at the Root, Mother to Son, Love Poems, 28 Days of Poetry Celebrating Black History, I-III & The Missed Education of the Negro. Faison completed undergraduate & graduate studies in English at UVA and VA TECH; she completed doctoral studies in Education at VA State University. Faison's been published in Callaloo, Obsidian, PRAIRIE SCHOONER, Artemis Journal, West Trestle Review, RHINO, Southern Poetry Anthology, About Place Journal, Southern Women's Review, Deep South Magazine, Chickenbones, AUNT CHLOE, and elsewhere. Dr. Faison is a recipient of fellowships from VA Humanities, Furious Flower Poetry Center, and AWP. She's won the Tom Howard Poetry Prize and ranked finalist for CAVE CANEM and Louise Bogan Poetry Prizes. Faison's been published alongside Iyanla Vanzant, Danny Glover & Dr. Cornel West in the NAACP Image Award-winner, Keeping the Faith. She's Assistant Professor of English and Chair of Languages and Literature at VA State University.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

This Thing that Happens


by Latorial Faison

What do we call what
life has become, this thing

that happens every day,
for those of us still here,

this getting up and laying
down of sorrows, this

middle passage to gray
tomorrows where orphans

and the elderly cry and
die alone? We be sleep

walking, tongue-talking,
and teaching beatitudes

to lost sheep in search of
pastures greener than

this, while God forbids
rains and summons

droughts to hang every
one of us out to dry.

Copyrighted December 23, 2010 Latorial D. Faison
www.latorialfaison.com

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