Author Mikaylah Simone Featured In Online Interview at TheBookInsider.com

The precision and elegance of a poets words can make readers pause to appreciate their own perceptions or examine their feelings. This can surely be said of one new poet Mikaylah Simone. Mikaylah is an emerging African-American poet whose simple, yet visceral, style brings poetry back to its basics as a social art through her affirmation of cultural identity and personal redemption.

(PRWEB) April 10, 2005 -- The precision and elegance of a poets words can make readers pause to appreciate their own perceptions or examine their feelings. This can surely be said of one new poet Mikaylah Simone. Mikaylah is an emerging African-American poet whose simple, yet visceral, style brings poetry back to its basics as a social art through her affirmation of cultural identity and personal redemption. Leaving her Texas beginnings, New York soon became the ideal stage for her "one-woman show" of life. From the "Lone Star" (unfashionably dressed in black skin), to the "Big Apple" where black is "vogue" on the Harlem runway. Mikaylah's poetry communicates consciousness and passion out of her strong desire to transform thoughts and experiences into art.

The Book Insider: Mikaylah Simone is your artist name-why and when did you decide to use a pseudonym?

Mikaylah Simone: I mention the meaning of my name in "My Manufactured English", but the root meaning of the name Mikaylah isnt different than the root meaning of my real name...so that wasnt too much of a stretch. I mostly changed my name to give the creative side of me the chance to be born and truly live. Sometimes we get caught up in working to exist, keep the "things" we have, and trying to obtain more "things" as if it will define who we are and make us more important. When we say "time is money", our employers (modern day masters) translate this as "your time is my money". Years of living in that frame of mind makes it impossible for anyone to express the creative energy that frees them...Mikaylah needed to be free.

The Book Insider: What is your birth name?

Mikaylah Simone: Well...Im a big fan of "old school super heroes" like Wonder Woman...she never revealed her true identity...I will do the same for now (although I dont have an invisible jet, a golden lasso of truth, or bullet proof bracelets)
The Book Insider: What did you like to read when you were a little girl?

Mikaylah Simone: Its hard to recall ever being a little girl, experiences age a person quickly. I do remember thinking that Mother Goose being the "hottest poet" to ever rhyme a verse.

The Book Insider: You were born in Texas? How long did you live there? What were the early years in Texas like?

Mikaylah Simone: I was born and raised in Texas, left when I was twenty and lived my adult years in New York. "Jim Crow" is not something that people let you forget...historically inherent in society. The stories of what black people endured in the South are not so long ago or far removed. Growing up in the antebellum south is like living in the middle of forgotten fragments of time. Not all townships and neighborhoods see the benefit of metropolitan progression; many of the same buildings my parents grew up around are still standing, condemned or left in rubble to ruins.

Read the full interview: http://www.thebookinsider.com/Interviews/MSimone.htm

http://www.thebookinsider.com

Visit Mikaylah Simone at www.msimone.com.

###