I absolutely love poetry. sometimes I start writing what I think is prose, and it ends up reading like a poem! I have three favourite writers, Lemn Sissay, Maya Angelou and James Weldon Johnson.

James Weldon Johnson was a black American writing in the 1930s. His poem, ‘The Creation’, is a very powerful retelling of the Genesis story of creation. For me,  it is so breathtakingly good that I can totally visualise that first week of creation. My next favourite writer is Lemn Sissay, who was taken from his Ethiopian mother in the 1960s, his name was changed to Michael by a social worker and for many years he was in various children’s homes and foster care. He went on a quest to find his true identity and I believe that he found out the name Lemn means why? His book ‘My Name is Why’ is a poignant story of one man’s journey to find out who he really was. Lemn is also a poet, and his poems are simple, yet powerful and resonate across generations. But, perhaps my all-time favourite writer is Maya Angelou.

As a teenager,  I’d read her books in sheer disbelief. How could one woman endure so much and still keep smiling? Her poem ‘The Mask’ reminds us that to survive it is sometimes necessary to wear that mask. This was especially true for black Americans during enslavement and later on.  We smile and pretend all is well, but underneath our stories are so very different from what we show.  My absolute favourite is ‘Still I Rise’. This poem takes us out of the negative reality of enslavement and puts us on a pinnacle where we can look down and have conversations about our continual rise as a people.

My favourite unread Christian author is Jeff Lucas. He presents the Christian journey with humour from his own experiences and is not afraid to tell how ‘unspiritual’ he  can become in times of crisis. His books area honest representation of the Christian journey. I have a lot of respect for people who tell their story unapologetically.