While working at a non-profit organization, Sonya Renee Taylor—author of the recently released book “A Little Truth On Your Shirt"—was asked to perform a poem at a local benefit. She described the experience on the stage as “the single most exhilarating thing in her life.” She fell in love and went home to look up local spoken word open mic nights. Within 13 months, she was the National Poetry Slam Champion!
Afterward, Sonya Renee quit her full-time job and began working as a poet.
So with all this success on stage, why would she want to write a collection of poems? Sonya Renee said she loves “building that moment with the audience."
"But when I am gone, I’m gone," she continued. "The page has longevity that can’t exist on the stage. People can go back and experience it again. They can dig and expand their observations.”
Sonya Renee admits that more permanent words can be scary. “Written words are more closely dissected and judged,” she said. “A part of me wants to yell, Stop the presses!” However, she challenges her fear by pushing past it.
Sonya Renee learned long ago how to push, kick, and bite her way out of her fears and create a true life for herself. Her poems are often rooted in her own jagged beginnings. They are raw and rough, and punch the reader in the stomach. But the reader reads on, breathless, because she cuts deep at the common human emotions of shame, love, and redemption.
“I look through the lens of an African American bi-sexual woman but the truth I describe is universal,” she said. “We find truth in others’ experiences despite race, class, gender and sexual orientation. So many people are afraid of being too human, too frail, too vulnerable. I write from a space of literary discomfort. I tell my story and hopefully give other people permission to tell theirs.”
A Little Truth On Your Shirt can be found on www.girlchildpress.com, www.Amazon.com, and independent bookstores around the country. Visit Sonya Renee on Facebook and at www.sonyareneeisreal.com.
While working at a non-profit organization, Sonya Renee Taylor—author of the recently released book “A Little Truth On Your Shirt"—was asked to perform a poem at a local benefit. She described the experience on the stage as “the single most exhilarating thing in her life.” She fell in love and went home to look up local spoken word open mic nights. Within 13 months, she was the National Poetry Slam Champion!