I have pondered and reflected on the age of my writing and its process. I found that it was influenced greatly by various of my favorite writers and poets. I realized that my voice was a mirror of those that I aspired to be like. I was most influenced by those that had a knack to verbally paint pictures with descriptive ease and utilized the powerful imagery to motivate, inspire and reflect.
By Charles Sapp II
I’ve been searching for decades for my voice,
foreign and unfamiliar it has been.
My voice has been hidden beneath the layers of influence and inspiration,
found within the writers and poets of the past and present;
my identity was not of its own.
My voice
became the voice of Saul Williams’ spoken word that was heard from the distance
and echoed the whispers of Khalil Gibran and the words from the Prophet
and the Neon Vernacular of Yusef Komunyakaa illuminated my written verses.
The power of these writers and countless others have transformed my voice
and the development of heightened states of awareness.
My voice,
surfacing through the ages towards maturity
and conceptualized to define the soul and spirit of the collective,
My voice is merely the intertwined vocal intonations of self,
manifested through my predecessor’s dialectic wisdom.
My voice,
verbal with optimism as it reflects the surface of galactic waters,
and reverberates the serum of truth that pours out of each spirit encountered,
while journeying through the vocal cords of life.
My voice
has grown, enriched vision
with human awareness coalesced with cosmic concoctions
that speaks my words into existence.
My voice is the voice of humanity,
my voice is the soul that is buried deep within,
my voice has always been my voice,
made up of you and me.
