BRASSBONES & RAINBOWS is the debut poetry collection of Shirley Bradley LeFlore, an oral poet and performance artist from St. Louis, Missouri who has been on the literary scene for over five decades. While LeFlore tackles social, political and cultural issues with a profound love for humanity, she also provides insight into self-identity, inner-strength, beauty and faith. A literary griot, LeFlore shares the fabric of verse through jazz, blues and gospel in an easy going, smooth and soothing Southern American dialect mixed with African American Vernacular English serving as musical notes. BRASSBONES & RAINBOWS is a stunning testament to Shirley Bradley LeFlore, a story singer whose words will certainly roll off your tongue. Cover art: Frank Frazier. Photo credit: Kelly Revelle, 520 Photography.
Contributors
Introduction by Gabrielle David
GABRIELLE DAVID is the publisher of 2Leaf Press, a Black/Brown female-led nonprofit press based in New York that promotes multicultural literature and literacy, of which she serves as executive director. She is also editor-in-chief of the award-winning quarterly phati’tude Literary Magazine. Her poetry and essays have appeared in the Paterson Literary Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, AIM Maga-zine, and the Huffington Post, and she is an editor of Hey Yo! Yo Soy! 40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry by Jesús Papoleto Meléndez (2012), The Branches of The Tree of Life (2014), What Does it Mean to be White in America (2016), and is the author of the TRAILBLAZERS series (https://trailblazersblackwomen.org). http://gabrielledavid.com
About the cover artist Frank Frazier
FRANK FRAZIER, a native of Harlem, is a self-taught sculptor, painter and collagist that currently hails from Dallas, Texas. With an art career that began when he was seven years old and spans over 50 years, Frazier is well-respected in the international arts community. With artistic inspiration from artists such as Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence and Elizabeth Cattlett, Frazier works in several mediums, including oil, acrylic, watercolors, pen and ink, charcoal and other materials. His work has been shown and featured in numerous museums and galleries, such as the African American Museums, Hempstead, NY; Armour J. Blackburn Gallery at Howard University; Martin Luther King, Jr. Library in Dallas; the Brooklyn Museum; National Civil Rights Museum of Tennessee; the Schomburg Center at New York Public Library; and Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. His cover art, DooWoop Series: “Those Sista’s Can Sang,” was done in a watercolor wash and fitted magnificently with Brassbones & Rainbows.
Here's What People Are Saying
“’You can’t be jivin when her voice be horn.’ Shirley Bradley LeFlore’s poems in BRASSBONES & RAINBOWS refine our world. Her voice is bold, vivid, brave, thick with heart and history. These poems snatch the wind from b’tween the legs of ancestors, and sing, sing her beautiful deepthroat brassband into our skins. LeFlore is a river woman mending our pain, renewing our spirits. Listen! She be whistling griot songs from the Gullah of her drum.” ~Cheryl Boyce Taylor, poet, curator of Calypso Muse Reading Series
“BRASSBONES & RAINBOWS is not an all-inclusive collection, but it is representative of the spirit, the power and the unique voice that is Shirley Bradley LeFlore.” ~Deborah Mashibini, poet and teacher
“Shirley Bradley LeFlore’s book has come just in time. The beauty and majesty of her words in BRASSBONES & RAINBOWS has saved me from the paralyzing grip of ‘poetic humdrum.’ It’s been quite a while since I’ve jumped heart first into a book. Sang and danced a blue light grind with its metaphors. Thank you Shirley. You’ve got me believing in magic again.” ~Layding Kaliba, author of In The Absence of God, Blind Beggar Press, co-founder of The Linyak Project
“My closest literary colleague among a worthy group of writers with whom I have worked with for decades, Shirley Bradley LeFlore personifies her unique expressions of black feminine experience as she gets “my bread buttered on both sides” one way or another.” ~J.D. Parran, multi-woodwind improviser, composer and educator
“Shirley LeFlore has long been regarded as a great performance poet and served her community, as few poets do, as unofficial spiritual minister, presiding at weddings, funerals, and other significant life events. Here in her first full collection, essential poems to turn to & return to like valued friends. A book to be celebrated and treasured.” ~Michael Castro, poet and arts activist
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