Author’s Work
A Road With Memories
This is a book of stories about men and women who struggle every day to overcome fear of the unknown and to confront life’s many adversities. They dream of a better life, and often fall short, but find a way to survive. So many times men and women dream for things beyond their reach and many times are disillusioned. They often struggle to find love, and to be loved, and sometimes lose their way. Many struggle between hope and despair throughout their lives clinging to a fine thread between despair and hope that shatters. Usually, the adversary they face is in the normal, and at times paranormal. However, those who are lucky or blessed, find and hold on to faith. Finally, the author writes about men and women and redemption — that even the worst sinners can be redeemed by the blood of the cross. There are so many more examples of our fragile humanity, like grains of sand or molecules of air that gives the reader a few things to think about from my life’s journey in this memoir.
Life’s Journey Through The Eyes Of A Poet
In this book, the author uses a poetic narrative to share his views of life as it unfolded through events, people, and places that had the greatest influence on him. The story of black people’s struggles in America leading up to the Great Migration from the South, the rise of the “New Negro,” of Black culture, the renaissance of religion, literature, art, and music in Harlem, where the writer spent forty years of his life, had a great impact on him. In his poetry, he shares with us his views on the powers of love and he compares our lives with the four seasons of Nature. He shares his memories of people who in untold ways had made his journey possible. He writes about his journeys to Africa, Europe, China, Australia, and Fiji, sharing his unique insights and observations along the way. And, of course, he could not end his journey without going back to his birthplace as he invites us to stroll with him on Memory Lane to that dear little town, La Boca, C. Z., that was demolished and vanished forever from the earth, and now only remains in memories. This is the journey you will see, briefly, through the eyes of a poet.
The John Graham JR. Story
This is a story, buried in the archives of the past, about a young, unfledged teenager, John Graham Jr., who dreamt of becoming a digger on the Panama Canal like his father and who romanticized the experience as “The moving of mountains and the braving of swamps and jungles.” To him, it was going to be the greatest adventure that he looked forward to. When, in the year 1910, his father sent for him to come to Panama to join him, his dream came true, but not in the way that he had expected. In a period of only five short years after leaving home, his once untarnished and unblemished life was so deeply and so remarkably transformed that even his aunts Beulah and Sarah could not recognize him when he returned to Jamaica.
Songs And Stories Of A Digger’s Son
This book reflects on the plight of the so-called “West Indians” who came by the tens of thousands from the Caribbean islands to the wilderness of the Isthmus of Panama at the dawn of the twentieth century and who gave, in most cases, the last ounce of their strengths, and in many cases their lives, to help create the miracle of the Panama Canal. The disappearance of La Boca, Canal Zone, as a West Indian town (like many other “silver” towns) served as the strongest incentive for the author to write this book.
The James Edwards Story
James Edwards was born in the post construction era, 14 years after the Panama Canal was built. In the book, we see him as he goes through different stages of life in a town that also changes with events and time. We follow him as he transitions from childhood to adolescence to adulthood and we get to experience the personal challenges, setbacks, and, as a young adult, the consequence of a choice he makes due to circumstances at the time. His life is affected, and, in many ways, shaped by that choice; and though it cleared a pathway for him, nevertheless, it caused him to pay a very high price.
