My Poetic Journey of Coming Up From Religion

Next week is the release of my new book, Up From Religion. I’m so exited to share with you all my life and how transformed into who I am today.

We all have a story to tell. And for many years, people have been asking me to tell mines. So as I was transitioning out of the Hebrew Israelite faith last year, I finally decided to put my life on paper and share it. But as I was making my attempts to write about my life and share my stories, something unplanned and miraculous happened — poetry came flowing out of me.

I say miraculous because I had not ever been a poet and for the last 7 years or more I have only written in the format of articles, essays, and proverbs. So that was my intent as I sat down to write about my life. But with this project, that didn’t happen. Instead of sentences and paragraphs, poems and rhymes came out of me.

I didn’t plan for it and I can’t explain how it happened, but it did. And after the first poem came out, the second and the third followed, and that’s when I knew that poetry would be the method I’d use to share my life. And over hundred poems later, Up From Religion: A Poetic Memoir, was born.

About The Book

Up From Religion is part memoir, part-advice book — full of my life stories and gems of wisdom from the lessons I’ve learned along the way.

I start out exploring my before and after journey as a writer and teacher in the Hebrew Israelite Movement and the many experiences that caused me to leave both the religion and the bible behind. As I tell my story, I bounce back and forth between the trials of my personal life and the 400 year plight of Black Americans, showing how Western religions keep Black people divided and conquered. I also share my personal spiritual practices that allowed me to walk in wholeness without the use of any religion or the bible, and provide for you poetical proverbs from my lessons.

This book is extremely personal to me and is the first time I’ve been open about many parts of my life to anyone. Yet, writing down these moments and forming them around poetry, was the most therapeutic experience I’ve ever felt, and it was apart of my healing process. So, it is my hope that it would be of as much benefit to you reading it as it was for me writing it.

Sharing my life in the form of 75+ poems feels like the riskiest thing I’ve written so far. And since I can’t wait for the book’s release this summer, I wanted to offer a pre-order special to y’all and give you a chance to read it early before everyone else does.

Why You Should pre-order the book

Up From Religion officially hits the stores on June 11th, but it’s now available for pre-order.

If you pre-order my book between now and the release date (June 11, 2019), I will send you an Advanced digital copy of the manuscript in PDF format. This way, you get to read your purchase early, before the physical copy gets mailed to you after the 11th.

So if you would like to pre-order the book and get a free digital copy, here’s what you need to do:

1. Pre-order the book at your favorite bookstore (B&N, Amazon, BAM).
2. Send the receipt to my email address: madu@truthovertradition.com .
   
3. Wait for my reply back with a private link to access the digital book.
4. Download your digital advance copy of Up From Religion.

It’s as simple as that. Thanks in advance for your support and I hope you enjoy the read. Peace & love!