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News Release
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For Immediate Release - 2010
Gem Publications, Inc (773) 931-1700
gempublicationsinc@sbcglobal.net
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Hyde Park’s Love Poet Celebrates First Family in Poetry
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Hyde Park’s popular “Love Poet” extends her love to the nation’s most celebrated Hyde Parkers. Lawyer and award-winning poet Ginger Mance released her third book of poetry, Rebirth in Light: Poems for the First Family, honoring the inauguration of Barack Obama to president this past October.
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Ginger Mance’s literary talents have been recognized by a veritable “who’s-who” of artists and intellectuals. Michael Bernard Beckwith, founder of Agape International Spiritual Center (celebrated for his work on The Secret), declares her “poetic tribute to Barack Obama… kissed by heaven’s inspiration.” Eminent Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree calls her work powerful, soaring, uplifting and timeless in expressing the excitement of our nation and the world.” Haki Madhubuti, poet, and distinguished professor at Chicago State Univ. says Mance has been able to “gather fragments and wholeness from the cultural memories of our ancestors.”
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Long before Barack Obama became the first Black president of the United States, Ginger Mance began commemorating his role in the historic 2008 election. In 2004 Ginger Mance penned an African praise poem in honor of Barack Obama titled Awakened Sun, Amazing Grace .In June, 2008 novelist Sandra Jackson-Opoku, along with Ex-Libris Book Club nominated her as a candidate for inaugural poet. When Obama won the election and selected Elizabeth Alexander as inaugural poet, Mance continued to reflect on the inaugural theme, a “New Birth of Freedom.” The project grew into a book-length collection of poems for the President, First Lady, Daughters, Grandmother – even Bo, the First Puppy. Inspired by President Obama and his family, Mance sees this work as “a call to the American and world family for unity, peace, reconciliation and forgiveness.” A world, in the words of Margaret Burroughs, founder of DuSable Museum “where freedom no longer waits to be born, but…where freedom births itself.”
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Rebirth in Light is not Mance’s first work in praise poetry, an ancient poetic form that commemorates significant people and great accomplishments. Earlier works by Mance honor the lives of Harold Washington, first Black mayor of Chicago; Nelson Mandela, first Black president of South Africa, and Barack Obama on the occasion his 2004 senate race. Ginger Mance is also the author of two books of poetry: An Ancient Fire Burns and A Prayer for Black Men, as well as a CD of spoken word love poems for which the Hyde Park Herald dubbed her “The Love Poet.”
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Ginger’s recently appeared on NBC live followed by a book launch event at the DuSable Museum of African History with Dr. Margaret T. Burroughs, and presented her poems to standing ovations at the renowned Michael Bernard Beckwith’s 6,000 member Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles. The author was also featured at the Tucson Urban League’s 39th Grand Gala in Tucson, AZ, in March, 2010. Ginger appeared several times on cable access television and is available for additional speaking engagements Contact gempublicationsinc@sbcglobal.net or call (773) 931-1700.
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