Buddah Desmond’s New Poetry Collection, Coming Up From the Downside: Finding Joy in Our Song, is Out Now!

Posted on March 8, 2024 by BuddahDesmond611

The celebration continues! Happy to announce that my latest poetry collection, Coming Up From the Downside: Finding Joy in Our Song, is out now!

Coming Up From the Downside is about adversity, healing, resilience, and faith. It’s about overcoming pain, loss, depression, health issues, and heartbreak to get to real love and the joy that sustains us through it all. It’s the third and final book in what I’m calling “The Home Within” trilogy, which was preceded by 2020’s From The Inside Out: A Poetry Collection and 2023’s Everything I Miss(ed) At Home.

The vast majority of the poems in this book were written in the thick of the pandemic. One of the bleakest periods that completely changed my life, and the lives of so many others. It was a season that kept giving lesson after lesson after lesson in the midst of getting up from the downside.

Coming Up From the Downside was published by Liquid Cat Publishing. The cover was designed Black Author Brand. Extremely grateful to my publisher’s team and the Black Author Brand team for their love, support, encouragement, guidance, and great work throughout this process!

And thank you so much for all who’ve supported me along the way. Words aren’t enough to express my gratitude.

Coming Up From the Downside: Finding Joy in Our Song is available for purchase at Amazon. Get into it!

Much Love + Many Blessings! ~ Buddah Desmond

Buddah Desmond Wins 1st Place in Yecheilyah’s 5th Annual Poetry Contest

Posted on December 11, 2022 by BuddahDesmond611

Happy to announce that I recently won 1st place in Yecheilyah’s 5th Annual Poetry Contest! You can read my interview and winning poem entitled, “Ghosts, Ghostbusting History + Visible / Invisible Lives (Freedom is Ours)” on the The PBS Blog. This theme for this year’s contest was “Freedom.”

Major kudos and praise to the winners Daphne Ayo (for “Uncaged”), Renita Siqueira (for “Allowed to Exist”), and Rebecca Whitman (for “Moment of Truth”), and all of the participants!

Much gratitude to Yecheilyah and the committee for the honor. So grateful to you for providing a platform for us to share our work about timely, relevant themes and do it in a way that is enlightening, encouraging, inspiring, and uplifting.

It’s a POETRY THANG!!!!

~ Buddah Desmond

New Book, From The Inside: A Poetry Collection, Out Now!

Posted on April 30, 2020 by BuddahDesmond611

I’m happy to announce my new book, From The Inside Out: A Poetry Collection, is out now! After sitting on this project for a few years, I finally decided to get over myself and hit the button.

About The Book

From The Inside Out: A Poetry Collection examines the power of love and its impact on our lives. When combined with action, commitment, faith, hope, persistence, and pride, love can transform our relationships, our communities, our world, and each of us. We can find “Glory” when we “lose [ourselves] in the beauty and wonder of life and love.”

As these poems illustrate, this journey may require a little work, a little discovery, and some growing pains…. For love is an inside job. And we love from the inside out.

From The Inside Out is available for purchase at Amazon. Tell a friend, then another friend, and then another friend.

Much gratitude for your support. Peace, Love, and Many Blessings!

The Ironic State of Black Men in Society (from ‘Prevail’)

Posted on July 16, 2013 by BuddahDesmond611

During the Spoken Word Hour at the Baltimore Urban Book Festival this past Sunday, 7/14/13, I recited “The Ironic State of Black Men in Society” from the “Life” section of Prevail. I thought it quite fitting considering recent events. Video of the performance is forthcoming.

The Ironic State of Black Men in Society

Such complex, beautiful creatures:
Envied,
Despised,
Copied,
Immortalized,
Celebrated,
Yet condemned to damnation.

Often seen as failures, hoodlums, and vagabonds.
Rarely honored or acknowledged for the greater good they’re doing for their
families, their communities, and themselves.
With that depiction in the media how could their outlook not be gloomy?
But that’s only if you aren’t hip to the real T of their plight.

For some strange reason, in the larger society, it is hard for them to be accepted
as intelligent, honorable, responsible beings in areas outside of entertainment.
And when this perspective of them is challenged, it’s met with all kinds of
resentment, distrust, doubt, and downright hatred
Anytime reality trumps perception the masses can’t seem to handle it.

And when they happen to be seen in a positive light, and something happens to
     them, or they are accused of an action that casts a negative light on the initial
     impression,
They are immediately baited for the wolves.
Regardless of proven guilt or innocence, they’ve already been placed into the
     proverbial jail,
Never to be redeemed or forgiven.
They are made to pay for their misgivings and backfires—whether intended
     or not, whether guilty or not—for several lifetimes over.
Even after death, vindication is not promised, if ever granted,
’Cause the fickleness of society will not enable a shift in feeling, right, judgment,
     or frame of mind.

The road to justice and finding a relevant, truthful place for black men in this
world does not seem possible in any of our lifetimes.
While the imagery and experiences are not, and will not, always be positive,
The belief that black men are no good is ever prevalent.
What has happened, unfortunately, to their plight has many causes and fingers
that can be pointed at many places.
But the realness, the truth, and the change begin within.
Just because you’ve been denigrated to a certain caste in the world
Does not mean that you have to accept it or embrace it as your own.
Defy what stood before you;
Challenge what you’ve walked into.
Create something better to live on, and impact those coming after you.
That’s where your power lies.
There’s no guarantee that it’ll change minds,
But people will take note.

As long as you define who you are,
and continue to build yourself and your people up,
redemption is guaranteed.
There’s no need to seek the approval or consent of the outsiders.

“The Ironic State of Black Men in Society” is featured in the “Life” section of Prevail: Poems on Life, Love, and Politics. Prevail is available at iUniverse, Amazon (Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle), Barnes & Noble, Book-A-Million (Paperback | Hardcover), and other retailers.

101 Days Project: Politics, Social Issues, Inspiration from Writers, & Other Passions

Posted on October 5, 2012 by BuddahDesmond611

You know those times when you’re on a website and you see a category that appears to be a dumping ground for all the content that couldn’t fit into any of the other more descriptive categories? It’s like the miscellaneous category (though they usually don’t call it that). Well this last commemorative post for the 101 Days Project may appear to be that way. Although, I’d like to call it the “Potpourri” category. It also sounds better (and serves as an ode to Jeopardy). “Potpourri” highlights a variety of posts on politics, social issues, writing advice, and some of my other passions (like cooking and tea). Since I did not write as many posts within each highlighted area (as I did for poetry, music tributes and reviews, anecdotes, and inspirational writing), I thought it made the most sense to combine these into a hybrid category of sorts. I probably delve into social and political issues more so when I’m not writing on my blog. But I’ll hopefully be able to share more of this writing in the future.

Please check out the following:

Politics & Social Issues:

Inspiration From Writers:

Other Passions: