Born Linda Diane Mayfield, this aspiring poetess grew up in the Red Hook housing projects of Brooklyn, New York. Linda began writing poetry in her early teens, but soon abandoned her craft. She didn't lift her poetic pen again until 2003, almost forty years later. Today, she is the author of three collections of poetry including Life Is A Roller Coaster and Life Is A Roller Coaster 2.

Linda has done poetry readings at Barnes & Noble, The Queens Central Library, Stain, Valarie's Sophisticated Soul Food Cafe and the Delaware Art Museum (ArtSpeaks). She has also performed at Sista's Place with the legendary Louis Reyes Rivera and the Jazzoets, and made a guest appearance at Voices of Poetry, a special event put on by the Reading By The Branch book club of Greenville, SC. Online, she goes by the pen name of Slendah. Her poetry has appeared on websites such as Mr. Africa, Editred, Soulful Chemistry, E-LiteraryCafe, NubianPoets, Black-Poetry, The Black Poetry Cafe, PostPoems, LiterateNubians and TimBookTu. She has been the featured poet at Poeticnites and MotivateAMind. Her poems have also appeared in several anthropologies. Linda currently resides in Delaware with her husband Ronald who is also a published poet.

About Afroetry

Let's face it, how much have we really been taught about African-American History in school? Not much, right? I'm an old head (part of the baby boomer generation), and all I was ever taught was that we were slaves and George Washington Carver invented peanut butter. My son, at least, was taught about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King's dream. But, thank goodness today we have the internet where inquiring minds, such as mine, are now able to research and teach ourselves.

I believe we should be proud of our heritage, and others should try to understand it. In this book, I use poetry as a means of teaching black people about their history, heritage and culture. These are lessons that were never taught in school. Though many of my poems reveal the hardships people of color have endured, they were written to open people's eyes to the fact that blacks are a strong race of people able to succeed against all odds, while at the same time contributing significantly to human progress. I wrote this book with zealous devotion to people of African descent, in hopes of reminding them of their strengths, inspiring them to get back on track, and motivating them to strive to be all that God intended.

Linda Diane Mayfield's Contact Information:

Website:
http://slendah.tripod.com/

Email:
ldmhayes@yahoo.com