This beautifully illustrated collection of original poems illuminates Taylor Code's redemptive healing evolution from traumatized child to incarcerated gang member to spoken-word poet, youth mentor, and restorative justice advocate. A spiritual memoir in verse, Creations Of a Divine Entity provides an inspirational road map for youth and adults struggling to find their authentic voices in the face of violence, poverty, addiction and despair. Through his poetry, Taylor Code channels ancestral wisdom from the depths of his own story, and from an American culture that has forgotten itself. This book is a compelling invitation to remember, to reconcile and to re-imagine. This beautifully illustrated collection of original poems illuminates Taylor Code's redemptive healing evolution from traumatized child to incarcerated gang member to spoken-word poet, youth mentor, and restorative justice advocate. A spiritual memoir in verse, Creations of a Divine Entity provides an inspirational road map for youth and adults struggling to find their authentic voices in the face of violence, poverty, addiction and despair. Through his poetry, Taylor Code channels ancestral wisdom from the depths of his own story, and from an American culture that has forgotten itself. This book is a compelling invitation to remember, to reconcile and to re-imagine. In Creations of a Divine Entity, Taylor Code traces his DNA strands back through American history, one rhyme at a time. Taylor begins with a heartfelt ode to the spirit of his father and follows with "Warrior Princess," an alternately raw and poignant poem honoring the fierce big sister who stepped in as a protector and caretaker for him in childhood. His recollection of her recovering his stolen Halloween candy from the big kids down the block with the help of a sawed-off shotgun is one of many memorable moments in this powerful collection. As Taylor himself notes in the book's Afterword, many of his poems -- especially those that recall the years he spent running the streets - are infused with the rhyme schemes and rhythms of the gangster rap music that provided the soundtrack for his troubled teenage years. But Taylor's poems cut deeper than the hip-hop on which he was raised, and reveal the roots of his resilience, alongside the many challenges he has faced. His love for the woman in his life and for his children grounds the soft beating heart of this book in the midst of its jagged edges. He honors the healing he has experienced through those relationships, and shares the wisdom he now carries as a result of that healing. Creations of a Divine Entity is the work of a wounded healer who has found a way to mine the gold buried in his own bones. Taylor Code is more than a survivor, and his poems represent more than just another cautionary tale. He is a powerful source of inspiration for others and a well-travelled ambassador of the creative healing work that helped him to dig his own way out of prison. In the spirit of Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land, Eldridge Cleaver's Soul On Ice, or The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Creations of a Divine Entity kicks open the door to freedom for colonized minds ruled by fear. With this book, Taylor Code joins a long, proud tradition of soulful revolutionaries harnessing the power of the written word to transform themselves and the world in which they lived. The stunning illustrations in the book, created by renowned Los Angeles graffiti artist/graphic designer PLEK ONE (CalmPlex Art & Design) are further testimony to the transformational power of art in its myriad forms. The fact that these two visionary street poets were both incarcerated as kids should give any reader pause, and inspire some soul-searching on the part of politicians and educators who neglect to provide comprehensive arts programs in our nation's schools.
About the Author: Taylor Code has been writer and poet since the age of sixteen, when he first joined a writing workshop run by Street Poets Inc. in a Los Angeles County juvenile detention camp, and began to tell his story on the page. Taylor became a founding member of Street Poets' youth performance team in 1998. He later served as a Youth Outreach Coordinator and Teaching Artist with the organization, returning to many of the same facilities in which he once was incarcerated to share his redemptive story, to teach poetry and to mentor youth. Through this work, Taylor has been invited to speak and to perform his original poetry in a wide range of venues including the Violence Prevention Coalition's Gang Intervention and Prevention Conference, the Survivors' Speak Conference organized by Californians for Justice and Safety, Da Poetry Lounge in LA, Restorative Justice conferences at Loyola Marymount University, and on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona. Currently serving on Street Poets' Board of Directors, Taylor remains dedicated to sharing his story through poetry and to spreading the transformational power of the creative process worldwide.