Tamara J. Madison

I am posting this as a special request from one of my students.  Thank you, Andrea, for asking me.

The following is a poem that I use in my poetry classes to introduce poetry as storytelling.  It is one of…

     I remember the red and black Atlantic Record’s label and the forty fives that my parents kept in the floor model stereo.  I remember putting on a stack of records and hearing something in this voice that I just had…

     Most often we think of an error or something else negative as slipping through the cracks.  We talk about clean up work to clear and clean the dust and dirt that often falls through the cracks.  We even talk about…

            I am blessed to be celebrating the announcement of my first major publication, Threed, This Road Not Damascus, forthcoming spring 2019 from Trio House Press.  I have worked and waited and worked some more a long time for…

Muck, mire, memes, madness, slander, insults, and injury…  It had become way too much noise for me.  Social media and much of the media was filled with so much personal and political chaos that I needed to shut down for…

On January 29, 2016, I appeared as the guest speaker for the Annual Book Fair sponsored by The Soul Writers Guild at The Evansville African American Museum in Evansville, IN.  The following day, I was invited to facilitate a writers…

Like most folks, I have been thinking about the things that I want to see happen this year:  where I want to go, what I want to do, how I want to grow, etc.

“I keep asking, why me?” 

That was his next question after asking me if I went to church, believed in God or could possibly understand the whirlwind of madness that was rocking his world most recently.  The death of his…

As a “Back-to-School” special, I wanted to open up my interview series with a student who is on the move and achieving her goals.  Far too often, we are lost in the media madness that portrays the troubles and challenges…

I am excited to share that I will be doing a series of interviews for my blog this year! 

I personally know some of the most creative, positive, passionate people on the planet!  They continually inspire me on my toughest…

I am many things: Black, woman, writer, poet, performer, educator, speaker, wife, mother.  That last one, mother, has taken an immense amount of time, energy, blood, sweat and motivation to manage let alone master.  I have been the married mother…

Rant #1

Free Write Prompt (from one of my students):  In today’s society…

In today’s society mediocrity is an absolute rampant infestation that is poisoning everyone from the youngest to the oldest of all colors, shapes, and sizes. Rarely do…