, spiritual significance of the Chinese goddess Kuan Yin, and Buddhist teachings. 




This year Essence Magazine celebrates 38 years of existence.  Essence was founded in May 1970.  The birth of Essence was an important moment in Author Ananda Leeke's life because it helped to shape her vision of Black womanhood. At the time, Ananda was six years old.  Her mother Theresa brought home a copy of Essence and let her look at the pictures of Black women.  Ananda had never seen so many different images of Black women.  She thought they were all beautiful.  As she got older, Ananda spent hours reading and re-reading her mother's copies of Essence.  Essence became her Black woman's Bible and inspired her to become a lawyer, artist, writer, and entrepreneur.   

Ananda paid tribute to Essence in Love's Troubadours - Karma: Book One by creating a scene featuring the novel's main character Karma Francois reading an Essence article about online dating.  Author Connie Briscoe wrote the article. To learn more about Essence, visit www.essence.com.




On May 1, 1950, Illinois Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Annie Allen (1949), a volume of poetry.  Ms. Brooks is featured in Love's Troubadours - Karma: Book One.  The book includes a scene where main character Karma recalls seeing Ms. Brooks perform her poem "We Real Cool" at a social gathering held at her Uncle Wilson's home in Chicago.  For more information about Ms. Brooks' life, visit Chicago State University's Gwendolyn Brooks Center - www.csu.edu/GwendolynBrooks/index.htm
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwendolyn_Brooks. 
  

May also marks the celebration of Mother's Day on Sunday, May 11.  Mother's Day offers us an opportunity to honor the women in our life who have nurtured, supported, and loved us from childhood to adulthood. These mothering folk also include ourselves and men.  Each of us has the spirit and love of a mother inside of us.  That's why we should celebrate the gift of mothering.  If you are looking for unique Mother's Day gifts, visit www.cafepress.com/kiamshacom and purchase Love's Troubadours' apparel and products.  Click here to buy copies of Love's Troubadours - Karma: Book One: www.lovestroubadours.com/id26.html. The novel tells the story of a woman who mothers herself in her healing journey and learns to forgive her own mother so that their mother-daughter relationship can heal and flourish.

Women's Health is celebrated in May.  May 1-3 marks the inaugural National Black Women's Health Conference titled, "I Am Every Woman." It will be held in Atlanta, Georgia at the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel downtown. The keynote speakers for the event are Pearl Cleage (Author, Poet, Playwriter), Dr. Celeste Clark of the Kellogg's Company, Dr. Rogsbert Phillips (Breast Cancer Specialist) and Dr. Lynn Perry-Bottinger (Cardiologist). In addition, the session speakers are embellished with tremendous accolades including Mrs. Xernona Clayton of the Trumpet Awards Foundation. For more information, visit www.nbwhc.com.

May 11-17 is the 9th annual National Women's Health Week. It is a nationwide initiative coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office on Women's Health (OWH), to encourage women to make their health a top priority and take simple steps for a longer, healthier and happier life. For more information, visit www.womenshealth.gov/whw.

Love's Troubadours - Karma: Book One promotes mental, physical, and sexual health awareness in the lives of African American women.  Love's Troubadours' readers learn about the importance of sexual self-pleasure, HIV/AIDS awareness grassroots efforts, and addressing mental health and stress-related concerns with the support of therapy, spirituality, yoga, meditation, chanting, journaling, communication, family, and friends.  They also witness the impact that sarcoidosis has on African American women and their families.  

May is a great month to spend time learning about women's health online resources. See the list of women's health links below.  Make sure you visit Girly Home Webzine, a fabulous online lifestyle magazine that caters to women of color. It focuses on providing women of color with news across a wide range of topics including mental and physical health, beauty and wellness, food and wine, the art of femininity and etiquette, financial savvy, society and culture, and home comforts. http://girlyhomewebzine.com
 

Women's Health Links

A. Health Issues Faced by Women

1. Fitness and Nutrition - www.womenshealth.gov/FitnessNutrition

2. Body Image - www.womenshealth.gov/bodyimage

3. Mental Health - www.womenshealth.gov/mh

4. Women and HIV/AIDS - www.womenshealth.gov/hiv

5. Sarcoidosis - www.healthnewsflash.com/conditions/sarcoidosis.php

6. Women of Color's Health - www.womenshealth.gov/minority

B. Health Organizations, Web Sites, E-Zines, Blogs, and Message Boards

1. Black Women's Health Imperative (Celebrating 25 years on June 21, 2008 in DC) is the only organization devoted solely to advancing the health and wellness of America's 19.5 million Black women and girls through advocacy, community health and wellness education and leadership development. Founded as the National Black Women's Health Project in 1983 by health activist and McArthur genius Byllye Y. Avery, the Imperative promotes optimal health for African American women across their lifespan - physically, mentally and spiritually. www.blackwomenshealth.org/site/c.eeJIIWOCIrH/b.3082485

2. National Mental Health Association (NMHA) is dedicated to helping ALL people live mentally healthier lives. With our more than 320 affiliates nationwide, NMHA represents a growing movement of Americans who promote mental wellness for the health and well-being of the nation - everyday and in times of crisis.
www.nmha.org

. 

Enjoy!

The Love's Troubadours Team

Courage of form, courage of content. Sensuous thinking. Radical motion. Tim'm T. West carries forward Audre Lorde's practice of poetry as the "light by which we scrutinize our lives." With its embrace-critique of origins and its bravura leap from academic precincts into vernactular revelations, this book renews my hope for our collective survival."

— Jan Clausen, author of Apples and Oranges: My Journey Through Sexual Identity

Bare: Notes From A Porchdweller

Tim'm West's new chapbook BARE contains more of the thoughtful dialogue on spaces and self begun with Red Dirt Revival but is contextualized by many of his new experiences since moving from his "second home" in Oakland to Washington D.C. Funny, sexy, moving and immediate, BARE evidences West's motivation to continually re invent and recontextualize the self as a means of creating fresh spaces for our truth telling.

Flirting

Flirting is Tim'm T. West's poignant follow-up to Red Dirt Revival: a poetic memoir in six breaths. Another poetic memoir, expressed mostly through poetry (though also prose and essay), West flirts with memory, girls, boys, danger, politics, and romance". Known for his brave testimonials, West writes in the tradition of poets like Audre Lorde, Essex Hemphill, and Pablo Neruda who all seize language as a tool reflecting social change while bridging political and erotic landscapes. While rooted in his experiences as black, gay-identified poet, emcee, activist, and educator, Flirting is an invitation to (re)connect others to that optimistic, joyful space where, even between rocks and hard places, hope springs eternal.