Joy and praise for the Feminine side of Spirituality! And more Joy and more praise for our Sister June who allowed Spirit to Speak thru Her to Us with words that emanate such tenderness for Us. With words that radiate such love and healing for Us. With words that can only come and uplift the way a woman's words can do.

It has been millennia after millennia of words from the man's point of view. And not only have they been men's words, they have been White men's words. Word's from men who see an Almighty and Powerful God. Almighty and powerful being the very words that have beaten humanity to its knees. Words that have taken love for Spirit and turned us into God fearing and frighten people. Words that have spoken of women as evil, and weak and sinful in their body, mind and soul.

Women of all colors and cultures have been listening to the voices of the patriarchy telling them and telling men as well, that we have so much to correct about ourselves.

Rev June Gatlin heals those wounds with her choice of words. I felt as though her words where the healing caresses I needed after living a life trying so hard to live up to His expectations. I witness woman of every race and culture trying to live up to the words of the Patriarchy. We are told that many things about being in the female body is sinful and should be hidden. Words and meanings passed down from generation to generation telling women that they are weak and must strive to conquer all that their bodies represent.

As an Interfaith Minister and Interfaith Priestess, I work very hard at healing the many women who come across my path. Women who bare the burden of not really being made in His Image. Reverent June Gatlin lets them know that they are created as beautiful creatures. She tells Us that Divine Spirit" is your Mother Nurturer:Mystical. Omnipresence. Teacher. Healer. Endearing/Endurance. Your Refuge. Spirit is your Isness: Inspiration/Integrity. Sacredness. Nature. Essence. Sanctity. Stability." , "Spirit is eternal breath." and "Spirit is God. God is Spirit. One and same. God is your Originator, Giver of your breathing." and " Breathe Sister, breathe "

Her words heal because they intertwine Spirit/Divinity and God in such a way, that we are no longer separated from God, but instead are a part of Him created in the intention of pure love.

For anyone walking a Spiritual Path this book uplifts women to their proper place within Divinity. In reading June Gatlin's words a woman can feel her self worth as Divinely beautiful second to none.

I applaud June Gatlin for incorporating a feminist point of view without trashing any gender, race or culture. I applaud Reverend June for her courage to speak out and dare to make the Almighty and Powerful also a Loving and Giving and Nurturing God.

Thank you June Gatlin, for giving us Our Sacredness back. Thank you for telling us we are whole and complete.

I wait for more words from her to continue on the joyous journey of remembering where we came from and who we are.

This book has affected me in innumerable ways. I truly felt as if Gatlin was speaking directly to me. I shed tears from beginning to end. Though at first my tears were of pain and sadness, as I worked my way through the book they became tears of relief, gratitude and joy. June has truly done an amazing job of lifting women of color's spirits. It was as if the author was in the room with me, holding my hand, guiding me through a spiritual journey. Her words were, at times, harsh but always necessary. Her imagery was beautiful. I emerged as a new and improved woman, with a new consciousness. Although I am sure life will continue to throw curve balls at me, I will remember Gatlin's words and use them as a shield. Thank you June and the Spirit which allows you to speak. I will be forever indebted.

This book will be of especial help to young readers. I do, however have one quibble, and that is that the great writer Alice Walker has challenged white male prejudice so effectively that it is regrettable that there is not more discussion of this in the text. As a white radical feminist who sides with African-American women in their struggle against oppression, I am grateful that books like this are written.

This scholarly college-level survey of Alice Walker's works is recommended reading for any who want an assessment of her contributions: essays consider relationships between her protagonists, the Afro-American cultural concepts underlying their creation, and the focus and foundation of her other writings. An excellent, involving critical collection for modern college-level students of her works.

I use this book during our friendship week. It's a great story with many themes that help build our "community" in my classroom. This is one of my favorite books.

Catherine Deeter's paintings accompany this celebration of poet Langston Hughes' life, which reads like fiction as it surveys the influences on Hughes' career and the motivations behind his writings and life. An excellent picturebook biography, this requires reading skills but will appeal to grades 2-4.

The back cover of "Once" notes that this was Alice Walker's first volume of poetry; the text has a copyright date of 1968. This volume contains poems about the Civil Rights movement in the United States, love, despair, and other topics. Particularly interesting is a sequence of poems describing Africa as seen through the eyes of an African-American.

Walker's poems are written in a clear, smooth, often striking language. Some standout pieces are as follows. "African Images": a sequence of 45 haiku-like stanzas. "Karamojans": an ironic and tragic portrait of the "proud people" of the title. The title poem: illuminates the ugliness of American racism and the beauty of those who stand against it. "Compulsory Chapel": shows a welcome touch of dry humor. "Mornings / of an impossible love": a sequence of prose poems. "Johann": a striking, visually evocative poem that explores the possibility of interracial love.

I have great admiration for Walker's skill as a novelist and essayist. "Once" shows her to also be a poet of sensitivity and grace.

This is a small book of quotations having to do with living, dying and letting go. Since buying my first copy in 1990, I have given away many, many copies to friends who have lost someone. Tonight I have used it again, to help me write to a friend who just lost his brother in a car accident

Beautifully written, beautifully illustrated. My mother insisted on reading this book to me when i was at the age where i was "too old for children's books!" When she finished, i asked whether maybe i could keep the book...

"The Color Purple" is one of the strongest statements of how love transforms and cruelty disfigures the human spirit that this reviewer has ever read. Alice Walker gives us Celie, 14 years old when the book opens, who has been raped, abused, degraded and twice impregnated by her stepfather. After he takes her children away from her without a so much as a word, he marries her off like a piece of chattel to her husband, who is so cold, distant and inhuman to her that she can only refer to him as Mr; and this person deprives her of her sister Nettie, the only one who ever loved her. Celie manages to survive by living one day at a time. Her life is a series of flat, lifeless panoramas painted in browns and grays. Into this existence, if you can call it that, comes Shug Avery, her husband's mistress, who shows Celie her own specialness and uniqueness. A lot has been made about lesbianism in this book and all of it is beside the point. Celie isn't a lesbian, she is a human being in need of love and Shug Avery helps Celie realize that she is somebody worth loving and caring about. When Celie hurls her defiance into Mr's face -- "I'm poor, I'm black, I may be ugly... but I'm here", she is making an affirmation not only to him, but to the whole world; the reader can only say, along with Shug Avery, "Amen". When Celie finds the strength to leave Mr, he is left to face the reality of himself and what he sees isn't pretty; his transformation humanizes him and allows Celie to call him Albert, recognizing him as a person, as he finally recognizes her as one. The final chapter, in which Celie is reunited with her sister, makes many readers go through half a box of Kleenex, but Walker doesn't play cheap with the reader's emotions; she has a powerful story to tell and she tells it with such consummate skill and sensitivity that she brings us into it and makes it ours. This is a book to be treasured and read over and over again.

I recently read The Color Purple by Alice Walker. I thought it was an amazing novel. I definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for a heartfelt story with many lessons to be learned from it. Many themes were presented in this book. The relationships between white and black people were shown. And also the relationships between men and women. Whites treated blacks as if they we're below them, and men were always dominant over women. Throughout the novel, Celie, the main character, struggles to find herself and to overcome the burdens placed on her by society for being a black woman. Through her letters to God, the reader learns Celie's true feelings about the world around her. With the help of her sister Nettie and her lover Shug, Celie truly does find herself and learns many lessons along the way. She learns to stand up for herself, and to be proud of what she is. She is a great role model. Alice Walker did an excellent job of making the characters seem real. When I read this book, I felt for the characters in a way I've never felt reading any other novel. When Celie was sad, I was sad. When she was happy, so was I. I felt like I knew her as a friend. All of the emotions in The Color Purple really had an effect on me. All in all, this novel is inspiring, emotional, and extremely powerful. I would recommend it to anyone.

At one point in time, the novel, "The Color Purple," by Alice Walker has been banned and challenged for many reasons by various schools. There are a couple of topics and themes that have been considered controversial from a religious, political, sexual, social, or moral standpoint. These topics, including oppression of poverty, racism, and sexism are in existence in the life of Celie, the protagonist in the novel. Throughout the novel, she maintains a sense of her dignity and at the end, Celie opens her heart love. There are two major themes that I found contributed to the reason why this book has been banned and/ or challenged. The first theme is the harm and racist views towards the Black Community, especially in the South. Because they are constantly threatened and are treated violently, they form their own tight community, however violence also exists in their own houses. Men have forceful sex on their wives and constantly beat them, also. This is one reason the book was banned because it might have been a little bit too intense for some readers to take in and read enjoyably. African American women became second class citizens, not only in the socity, but also in their homes. Another theme in the novel was because of the constant harsh treatment, the women "allid" with each other. From this ally they come to realize in the end that they eserve a better life and can work together tomaybe improve the rights of women around the globe. In the ed of th novel, Celie is reunited with her sister, Nettie and her chldren, Olivia and Adam. Shug Avery, her ex- husband and he also become close friends after she moves into her childhood home. This tragic book ends up allowing people to fee happy for the protagonist and her family.
I believe that this book has positively contributed to the literary world because it gives people a sad, but heart- warming story through the eyes of an African American girl. It gave me a clear understanding of what African women went through and how people then and even people today are taken advantage of every day. It made me feel sympathetic towards people who cannot live their life without feeling security, love, hope and equality. It makes me always think never to take advantage of the treasures that I have in my life because there are people less ortunate than me in the world. Those are my thouhts to why it would be a positive contribution to the literary world. It had a great impact on myself and belive the story will impact every reader in some way, shape, or form.

Shakespeare's Othello is an interesting and dramatic tragedy. If you like imagery and irony, you will like Othello. Shakespeare uses the power of imagery skillfully to develop themes throughout the play. For example, recurring animal imagery is used to sharpen the contrast between people and beasts, showing how Iago and Othello begin to act more like beasts than human beings. Irony also adds much to the plot of Othello to make it interesting and exciting for the reader. Much of the irony used is dramatic irony because the reader knows of Iago's plot, while the characters in the play have no idea what is about to unfold. The relationship between men and women in Othello is another aspect of the play that makes it interesting to read. Iago's wife Emilia, for example, is very cynical towards men, probably from years of living with Iago. Othello and Desdemona's relationship is also intriguing. In the beginning of the play, Othello and Desdemona are seemingly deeply in love with each other. Othello, however, is rather easily convinced that his wife is cheating on him and becomes angry to the point where he cannot forgive Desdemona. He decides to kill her. As she is being murdered, Desdemona tries to protect her husband's innocence in her own murder. Another interesting aspect of the play which makes it stand out from other Shakespearean plays is the race of the main character. Othello is black and a Moor, or Muslim. This fact brings up issues to be explored in the play. Shakespeare shows the characters being separated not only by status and rank but also by their place of origin and their religion. Overall, Shakespeare's Othello is dramatic, well-written, and thoroughly explores how evil a human being can become.

Othello relects the true meaning of a tragedy both in its content and its structure.Tragedy is 'a story of exceptional calamity produced by human actions, leading to the death of a man in high estate.'The downfall of Othello is caused by his own actions, rather than by his character, or rather the two work in unison to create the stage for his downfall.
This is what captured my attention when I read this play.It is very profound to realize the fact that Shakespeare uses Iago to set this stage on which Othello is a mere player.
I love the character of Iago. His total confidence, the superiority that he feels when psychoanalysing human nature, his rational thinking and intellectualism sways the reader to think: 'Wow, this is a compelling and sophisticated man we're dealing with here!'
However, my admiration of Iago does not in anyway undermine my love of Othello. His poetic and calm demeanor makes the reader feel the pity and terror for him when he falls from grace (catharsis). Yet, we are made to understand that the reason why he is made to appear a gullible and ignorant fool to some readers is that he does not have any knowledge of a delicate, domesticated life. Venetian women were foreign to him. This tragic flaw in Othello added to the circumstances used by Iago to destroy him.
The meaning, and hence the tragedy of the play is conveyed through the use of Shakespeare's language, style, literary devices and imagery. Without these dramatic effects, readers would never be able to enjoy the play as much, although the dialogue is at times difficult to decipher.
I thoroughly enjoyed Othello and it is my hope that more people find it enticing as I have. I would be delighted to contribute more of my reviews to that effect.

As a play, "Othello" encompasses many things but more than anything else it is a study of pure evil. Although Othello is an accomplished professional soldier and a hero of sorts, he is also a minority and an outcast in many ways. As a Black man and a Moor (which means he's a Moslem), Othello has at least two qualities, which make him stand out in the Elizabethan world. He is also married to a Caucasian woman named Desdemona, which creates an undercurrent of hostility as evidenced by the derogatory remark "the ram hath topped the ewe".

Othello's problems begin when he promotes one of his soldiers, Michael Cassio as his lieutenant. This arouses the jealousy and hatred of one of his other soldiers, Iago who hatches a plot to destroy Othello and Michael Cassio. When Cassio injures an opponent in a fight he is rebuked, punished, and subsequently ignored by Othello who must discipline him and teach him a lesson. Iago convinces Desdemona to intervene on Cassio's behalf and then begins to convince Othello that Desdemona is in love with Cassio.

This is actually one of the most difficult Shakespeare plays to watch because the audience sees the plot begin to unfold and is tormented by Othello's gradual decent into Iago's trap. As with other Shakespeare plays, the critical components of this one are revealed by language. When Othello is eventually convinced of Cassio's treachery, he condemns him and promotes Iago in his place. When Othello tells Iago that he has made him his lieutenant, Iago responds with the chilling line, "I am thine forever". To Othello this is a simple affirmation of loyalty, but to the audience, this phrase contains a double meaning. With these words, Iago indicates that the promotion does not provide him with sufficient satisfaction and that he will continue to torment and destroy Othello. It is his murderous intentions, not his loyal service that will be with Othello forever.

Iago's promotion provides him with closer proximity to Othello and provides him with more of his victim's trust. From here Iago is easily able to persuade Othello of Desdemona's purported infidelity. Soon Othello begins to confront Desdemona who naturally protests her innocence. In another revealing statement, Othello demands that Desdemona give him "the ocular proof". Like Iago's earlier statement, this one contains a double meaning that is not apparent to the recipient but that is very clear to the audience who understands the true origin of Othello's jealousy. Othello's jealousy is an invisible enemy and it is also based on events that never took place. How can Desdemona give Othello visual evidence of her innocence if her guilt is predicated on accusations that have no true shape or form? She can't. Othello is asking Desdemona to do the impossible, which means that her subsequent murder is only a matter of course.

I know that to a lot of young people this play must seem dreadfully boring and meaningless. One thing you can keep in mind is that the audience in Shakespeare's time did not have the benefit of cool things such as movies, and videos. The downside of this is that Shakespeare's plays are not visually stimulating to an audience accustomed to today's entertainment media. But the upside is that since Shakespeare had to tell a complex story with simple tools, he relied heavily on an imaginative use of language and symbols. Think of what it meant to an all White audience in a very prejudiced time to have a Black man at the center of a play. That character really stood out-almost like an island. He was vulnerable and exposed to attitudes that he could not perceive directly but which he must have sensed in some way.

Shakespeare set this play in two locations, Italy and Cypress. To an Elizabethan audience, Italy represented an exotic place that was the crossroads of many different civilizations. It was the one place where a Black man could conceivably hold a position of authority. Remember that Othello is a mercenary leader. He doesn't command a standing army and doesn't belong to any country. He is referred to as "the Moor" which means he could be from any part of the Arab world from Southern Spain to Indonesia. He has no institutional or national identity but is almost referred to as a phenomenon. (For all the criticism he has received in this department, Shakespeare was extrordinarlily attuned to racism and in this sense he was well ahead of his time.) Othello's subsequent commission as the Military Governor of Cypress dispatches him to an even more remote and isolated location. The man who stands out like an island is sent to an island. His exposure and vulnerability are doubled just as a jealous and murderous psychopath decides to destroy him.

Iago is probably the only one of Shakespeare's villains who is evil in a clinical sense rather than a human one. In Kind Lear, Edmund the bastard hatches a murderous plot out of jealousy that is similar to Iago's. But unlike Iago, he expresses remorse and attempts some form of restitution at the end of the play. In the Histories, characters like Richard III behave in a murderous fashion, but within the extreme, political environment in which they operate, we can understand their motives even if we don't agree with them. Iago, however, is a different animal. His motives are understandable up to the point in which he destroys Michael Cassio but then they spin off into an inexplicable orbit of their own. Some have suggested that Iago is sexually attracted to Othello, which (if its true) adds another meaning to the phrase "I am thine forever". But even if we buy the argument that Iago is a murderous homosexual, this still doesn't explain why he must destroy Othello. Oscar Wilde once wrote very beautifully of the destructive impact a person can willfully or unwittingly have on a lover ("for each man kills the things he loves") but this is not born out in the play. Instead, Shakespeare introduces us to a new literary character-a person motivated by inexplicable evil that is an entity in itself. One of the great ironies of this play is that Othello is a character of tragically visible proportions while Iago is one with lethally invisible ones.