Our April Poetry Contest Winner Charles Payne!

Reiki is form of energy healing that has roots in the Eastern World, Egypt, and India. However, after thousands and thousands of years, when the original traditions and practices were no longer alive it was resurrected in Japan by Dr. Mikao Usui, a monk and scholar, who gave Reiki its name.

Rita Dove’s Mother Love poems explore the evolving relationship between mother and daughter using the infamous story of mythical figures Demeter, Persephone, and Hades.

Canisia Lubrin’s Voodoo Hypothesis is a collection that takes from the histories of colonization, science, and spirituality to provide a book of lessons for the human race. This is clear in poems like the self-titled “Voodoo Hypothesis,” a multi-page projection of the fate of Mars onto the Earth.

In Whereas, Layli Long Soldier manipulates language to create new meanings and retell the store of America’s relationship with Native Americans. By using the 2009 Congressional Resolution of Apology as a reference, Long Soldier is able to explore not just the meaning of the word “apology” but demonstrate the importance of taking accountability for the generations of grief and pain that are often laced within histories of violence.

Character archetypes are often crucial in all types of storytelling. This paper will focus on spiritual and supernatural storytelling and how a character's archetypal wheel, a tool detailed in Caroline Myss' book, Sacred Contracts, that evaluates twelve aspects of a person's life. When applied to story, helps predetermine a character's decisions, interactions, and overall journey. This paper is intended to not only show the importance of having, in a sense, a "character map," but also to show the connection with older more historical tales and their characters with our newer stories in the forms of tv, novels, and movies.

Soul In Space’s I Read It For You series

  Nnedi is commonly praised for stringing together a collection of stories that manages to immerse her readers into a universe she has created and we, as readers, adapt to fairly quickly. Her mixing of reality vs fantasy, using and calling out tropes and sticking to consistent settings, characters and more have helped us navigate a collection of tales fluently rather than getting lost in translation…