When a Black Man Loves was originally a collection of poetry and prose that spans about twelve years of my life (1991-2002). Originally released in 2002, I decided to do a slight update to it ten years later and offer it as an eBook. This book is not merely a look inside how I, a Black man, felt during different phases of my relationships, or more aptly stages of my life, but also into the depths and realities of love, lust, desire and need as well. These are aspects that form all relationships, no matter what ratio is used. The funny thing is that there were many other men that read the book and told me that some of the things that I wrote, they felt as well, but didn't have the ability to put in words like I did.
The book actually started from a poem, a poem that I wrote after some fourteen years of not writing any poetry at all. A lovely ebony goddess named Nicole Honeywood needed something to do for the talent part of the Miss Black Penn State competition, and I offered to pen something for her. Ultimately, the piece and her dramatic recitation went over very well, and I wound up writing more pieces which were the emotions that I was feeling at that time in my life. These all make up the first section of the book.
Maybe it will become a movement, or a vehicle to explore the emotional side of Black men and allow them to open up in regards to the issues of love and understanding of how their own background -- mainly upbringing, but also past relationships -- has played into not only the outcomes of various romances, but also in how they treat the women that they become involved in and how they treat themselves.
I realized that I had to put something about my writing style, because it will be overly evident with the update to the book. I write like I speak, so that those who have ever talked me to feel as though they are having a conversation with me when they read this book. I have been told that this is a good thing, and one person who really loved the book told me years ago to quit doing anything else, and just write. This book contains two additional sections in the front, and one in the back; the former are simple prose, while the latter contains both prose and poems. It would be great to make the first two sections a little more organized and merge them completely into the rest of the book, but that would actually change things quite a bit, and I have decided to leave it as is.
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