Regina Shepherd

Update to all viewers: There is now an ebook available for Lalibela on Kindle for $9.99 or for free as a part of Kindle Unlimited! Get yours today!!

Yes, that is spot on! Thank you for engaging. I took this photograph at Parkside Houses, where I was born and raised. It was my old stomping ground for quite some time before I went away to school. Using this photo as the cover, at that angle, reminded me of the rock hewn churches at a town in Ethiopia named Lalibela, named after the Ethiopian monarch with the same name. These grounds at Parkside are sacred in my own little world and are sort of a haven for me, like I'm sure is the case for folks in Ethiopia with the churches in Lalibela. Not to mention, the neighborhood is the backdrop for a lot of the pieces included in the work so I thought it was appropriate to use the photo as I saw the work having parallels with its namesake in Ethiopia. I appreciate the community and look forward to sharing and engaging more!

Please enjoy this poem, "Black Boy, Black Girl" from my collection, Lalibela: Black Boy, Black Girl A Black Boy Black Girl So Black So effervescent That they marvel truly the privilege of life. So Black that they will stand in showers under sun and sweat in church at the park Sitting in class on their bedroom floor and wonder at their fearfully dimensions each breath, novel the way only children can. Truly Black that My breast must ambition to speak kind, ripe, Black, questioning and an answer. Black Boy Black Girl So Black So light! They have no right to your eternities. With skin that turns like milk You be the flower, Black boy, Little Black girl that opens the way butter moves. So life So life Baby Black Boy Baby Black Girl: Did you know about sunrays? All the ways your arms and legs and back and breastbone connoisseured the sun? The way they chew the sunlight? Little Black Girl Dainty and Nubia Ethiopia and all, There will be none the visitor worthy of your terrain. None the palms deserving of your soil. How the stars people your eye light like freckles. Little Black Boy Adroit and Abyssinian New flower and sky, Do sandy dunes mimic your wealthy? The Nile and plains your disposition and ways? Corroborate the wonder that make atop each moment my hope anew. Black skin glowing glowed and shone. Our history tell of your children of all the ways you rightfully incline. Black girl Black boy So life So bursting So star So shine So whole So all So all Remember to edify prayers before the dusk, “how do you do’s…” Prayerful and song. New flower and soil. Abyssinian and all. Get your copy now on am*zon and be sure to leave a Customer Review/Rating!

Please enjoy this piece from my collection, Lalibela: Where I’m From Where I’m from we make the love. We live. Sometimes falling always walking in. Seasoning with fine herbs: sautéing, marinating, frying, stewing, boiling, baking, or just plain cooking. The sorrows work their 9-5 and on Fridays we send them home early. We play the songs, move the furniture and make the fun. Or we go outside to spread good airs, laughter and body movements. Kids run, preoccupied with children things. Teens dance, adults look on and the elderly nurse little beer bottles. And when the time comes for in-love we walk in just the same. Caught by cuteness or by spunk. Phone calls connect and then eventually do hands. Then do the bodies. Babies come or the drama. Maybe both and always with laughter. And when there are no radios, we sing the songs. When I feel displaced, so does my imagination sing. Now when you come to me, accusing of falling I be confounded. Knowing only a love that gives, is practical and sacrificing, my ear reacts also strangely to your ‘sweet-nothings.’ Your tellings of ‘unborn loving’. Love that has no legs – leaving me to wonder how we would make the journey. Ultimately me resolving in late hours to carry. The love I know means dishwashing, cleaning, sick nights and strong debating and hugging, quiet conversations. The love I know has hands and wings hands and wings and all the other practical things. Finally, the love where I live is always walking in. So I wonder, when looking across to you, why at my doorpost you remain standing. Fearing forward, to figure out whether you have grazed your knee or are remembering that you left something on your own stove back home, still cooking..

Hello! I am new here. My name is Regina Shepherd, I am a poet from the Bronx, New York and am interested in a book review for my poetry collection called Lalibela. The ISBN-13 is 978-1724991010, the publication date is July 6, 2024 and it is a paperback priced at $10. Lalibela is an account of coming home. Inspired by stories from the Boogie Down Bronx, this collection is from the perspective of a Black female millennial that left home and returned to its dilapidated realities. Lalibela holds within its reams the fatigue and redemption of a working class family of the African Diaspora in the West: the lively avenues, bus routes, love lives and various cultures preserved in memory and in real-time, as if frozen in place from another, happier time. It creates a legacy of teaching its young hard truths about survival, identity, achievement, failure, faith, death, resilience, life, love and hate. Lalibela is an expression and legacy of survival. Within this small community with limited resources people ponder existentially, pray colossal prayers and resuscitate grit mouth-to-mouth. Say 'yes' to this invitation to come home to yourself, to find that sanctuary for a piece of mind and gain direction to the home that travels with us as we navigate our various and difficult realities. Come to, Lalibela. All are invited to purchase a copy on am*zon and leave a Customer Review to share how the pieces have affected them. Thank you so much for your consideration and support! Here's to building community! -Regina

Hello! I am new here. My name is Regina Shepherd, I am a poet from the Bronx, New York and am interested in a book review for my poetry collection called Lalibela. The ISBN-13 is 978-1724991010, the publication date is July 6, 2024 and it is a paperback priced at $10. Lalibela is an account of coming home. Inspired by stories from the Boogie Down Bronx, this collection is from the perspective of a Black female millennial that left home and returned to its dilapidated realities. Lalibela holds within its reams the fatigue and redemption of a working class family of the African Diaspora in the West: the lively avenues, bus routes, love lives and various cultures preserved in memory and in real-time, as if frozen in place from another, happier time. It creates a legacy of teaching its young hard truths about survival, identity, achievement, failure, faith, death, resilience, life, love and hate. Lalibela is an expression and legacy of survival. Within this small community with limited resources people ponder existentially, pray colossal prayers and resuscitate grit mouth-to-mouth. Say 'yes' to this invitation to come home to yourself, to find that sanctuary for a piece of mind and gain direction to the home that travels with us as we navigate our various and difficult realities. Come to, Lalibela. All are invited to purchase a copy on am*zon and leave a Customer Review to share how the pieces have affected them. Thank you so much for your consideration and support! Here's to building community! -Regina