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At the Foot of the Mountain
At the Foot of the Mountain is a poetry collection that moves through memory, place, and the hard work of healing. The book shifts between nature scenes, family wounds, cultural identity, and quiet moments of reflection. Every poem feels like a step on a long trail where grief rises, settles, and rises again. Some pieces glow with the warmth of sunlight after rain. Others sit heavy, shaped by loss, longing, and the effort to understand where a person truly comes from. What ties it all together is a steady pulse of hope, small but stubborn, that shows up in forests, mountains, and even the kitchen.
Reading these poems, I found myself pulled in by how raw and tender the writing is. The language is simple on the surface, yet it carries so much under it. I felt a real ache in pieces about mothers, heritage, and complicated love. Some poems made me pause just to picture the scene, like the quiet watchfulness of a deer or the weight of snow on a birch leaf. The book mixes softness with sharp edges, and I liked that contrast. The emotional rhythm jumps aroun,d and I enjoyed never knowing if the next poem would sting or soothe.
I also appreciated how the natural world is used to talk through emotional pain. It is dirt, wind, and cold water. It is trees that fall and birds that migrate, and a trail that forces you to keep walking even when you would rather curl inward. The writing is unpretentious and heartfelt and sometimes unpredictable, which makes it feel alive. Now and then, the imagery overwhelmed me a little, but even that felt like part of the experience. Healing is messy. Memory is messy. The poems let that mess show.
In the end, I walked away feeling moved. I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy intimate poetry rooted in nature and personal history. It is a good fit for anyone drawn to stories of recovery told in small, vivid fragments.
Pages: 98 | ISBN : 198911945X
Literary Titan Book Award: Poetry
The Literary Titan Book Award recognizes poets who demonstrate exceptional artistry and proficiency and push the boundaries of language and expression. The recipients are poets who excel in their technical skills and evoke deep emotional responses, challenge thoughts, and illuminate new perspectives through their work. The award honors those who contribute to the literary landscape with their unique voices and powerful words.
Award Recipients
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
Surviving Cancer: Poetry and Prose
Surviving Cancer is a blend of poems, short reflections, and spiritual notes that trace Frederick Douglas Harper’s journey through cancer, aging, gratitude, and faith. It moves from personal stories about illness and recovery to broader meditations on history, injustice, friendship, love, and the fragile beauty of life. Many pieces are short and direct. Others feel like private conversations caught on the page. Across the book, Harper circles back to survival, divine protection, and a deep belief that life still has purpose for him after cancer, a theme he states openly in his introduction and early poems such as “Cancer: A Sweet-and-Sour Experience” and “God Had My Back.”
Reading this book felt a little like sitting with someone who has lived many lives and refuses to hide what any of them meant. I found myself pulled in by the plainness of the writing. It surprised me how steady and open his voice stayed, even when he talked about pain or fear. I felt that steadiness most in the pieces about his surgery and chemo, where he shares his relief, his gratitude, and even his frustration in simple, almost conversational lines. There was something honest in how he chose clarity over polish. It made me slow down and listen.
What moved me most was how wide he cast his net of concern. On one page, he reflects on his own scars. Next, he is calling America to stand up to injustice, to mourn the Trail of Tears, or to speak softly to someone who feels broken. I felt warmth rising off these pages. I also felt a kind of stubborn hope. There were moments when I wanted the book to push deeper into the contradictions of survival, but even when it didn’t, I could feel Harper’s heart working hard to stay open. That sincerity hit me harder than I expected. It reminded me that writing can be a kind of prayer or maybe a hand held out to strangers.
I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy reflective writing, people who are healing from illness, anyone who leans toward spiritual or faith-colored poetry, and anyone who wants a book that speaks plainly about gratitude and survival without pretending life is perfect. It drifts and circles back, yet that wandering shape fits a man who has lived through fear and come out wanting to share whatever wisdom he has gathered. I felt comforted, and I felt nudged to think more tenderly about my own life.
Pages: 175 | ASIN : B09RSVZ32H
The Moment I Stopped Disappearing
The Quiet Calendar follows a woman day by day as she leaves a damaging entanglement and rebuilds herself through small, tender moments of clarity, grief, and hard-won peace. Why was this an important book for you to write?
The Quiet Calendar was important for me to write because it marks the moment I stopped disappearing inside someone else’s narrative. I didn’t write it to explain what happened or to assign blame. I wrote it to reclaim myself. At the time, I was moving through grief quietly, functioning outwardly while unraveling inwardly. Writing gave me a place to be honest without performing strength.
This book documents the shift from survival to clarity. It captures how healing actually happens, not in grand gestures, but in small, private recognitions: a day without checking a phone, a breath that doesn’t hurt, a morning that belongs to you again. Writing it helped me turn silence into something useful. It became proof that I could leave, endure, and rebuild, one day at a time.
Why did you choose a day-by-day structure, and how did time shape the emotional arc of the book?
The day-by-day structure mirrors how grief behaves. When you’re in it, time becomes both oppressive and necessary, you count days because surviving them feels like an accomplishment. I needed the structure to ground me, to make the intangible measurable. I was writing in real time to replace texts I no longer sent.
Time shapes the emotional arc by revealing patterns. Early days are raw, repetitive, desperate. Later days are quieter, less dramatic, but more honest. The absence of intensity becomes its own kind of progress. By the end, the act of counting is no longer needed. That’s the real arc: not closure, but release. The calendar eventually dissolves because the life underneath it returns.
How did you decide when simplicity was enough, especially when writing about manipulation and pain?
Simplicity became a boundary. When you’ve lived through manipulation, language can become tangled, over-explained, defensive, performative. I stripped the poems down because clarity is an act of self-respect.
I trusted that naming a truth plainly was more powerful than dramatizing it. Pain doesn’t always need elaboration; often it needs space. Short lines, lowercase, and restraint allowed the reader to feel without being told how. When the words felt quiet but steady, when they no longer asked for validation. That’s how I knew simplicity was enough.
I’ve spent decades in an operating room, where time matters and conversations are often brief, interrupted, or unfinished. That environment teaches you to speak clearly and only when it counts.
My writing carries that discipline. I trust simplicity because it gets to the truth faster. When words are chosen carefully, they don’t need to be loud.
What role did the drawings play in your own healing process while creating the book?
The drawings were a parallel language. When words felt too loaded, drawing allowed me to process without narrative or justification. They slowed me down. They asked for presence, not explanation.
Visually, they echo the themes of the book—keys, time, absence, return—but emotionally, they served as anchors. They reminded me that creation doesn’t always require articulation. Sometimes healing happens through the hands before it reaches the voice. The drawings helped me stay connected to myself while the poems helped me name what I was leaving behind.
The sketches invite the reader into my internal landscape. They aren’t explanations, they’re presence. I wanted the reader to feel immersed, to experience the emotional weight of the book not just through words, but through what is seen and held in silence.
Author Links: X | Facebook | Website
What do you do when the person you loved disappears into silence?
You count. You write. You learn to breathe again.
the quiet calendar is a day-by-day descent into heartbreak—and the unexpected rise that follows. With stark honesty and gentle restraint, these poems illuminate the stillness after loss and the strength found within it.
For anyone who has ever held on too long or had to let go without closure, this collection offers recognition, release, and the quiet beginning of renewal.
the quiet calendar
The Quiet Calendar feels like a month of someone’s inner world laid bare. It traces day by day how a woman crawls out of a long, damaging entanglement and slowly learns to hear her own voice again. The book moves through grief, shock, anger, clarity, and finally something like peace. Each poem marks a moment in time. Some are sharp. Others feel like exhaling after holding your breath. The drawings scattered through the book soften the blows a bit. They echo the mood of the poems and give everything a floating, ghostly feel. The whole collection reads like a journal.
As I moved through the pages, I felt myself pulled into her emotional rhythm. The writing is simple on the surface, but it hits hard because of that simplicity. Some lines shocked me with how plainly they revealed the manipulation she endured. Other lines made me root for her like a friend who keeps getting stronger each day without realizing it. The pacing is tight. The shift from longing to clarity feels natural. It never rushes.
I also loved the way the book explores self-return. Many poems break open the idea that healing is not one big moment. It is a series of tiny decisions that build you back up. I felt myself smiling at her small victories. A cup of coffee alone. A morning without checking the phone. A song that once hurt now simply playing in the background. These little moments felt huge and real and made me weirdly proud of her. The writing carries a lot of tenderness, even when it stings, and I kept thinking about how many people will see bits of their own story in hers. The art deepened that feeling. The cracked hourglass. The key with wings. The feather.
The book is honest about the messy parts of leaving someone who should never have been held so tightly. It is gentle about the slow return to a life that was waiting the whole time. I would recommend The Quiet Calendar to anyone who is coming out of a breakup that left them confused, guilty, or hollow. It is soft, real, and full of small truths.
Pages: 112 | ISBN: 9798218838591
HAIKU FOR YOU A collection of simple haikus for early readers.
Poetry and poetics often take a back seat in books for young readers. That is a missed opportunity. When children encounter poetry early, appreciation tends to grow naturally over time. This effect becomes even stronger when the focus is clear and approachable. Haiku, with its compact form and playful precision, is an ideal place to begin.
This book introduces young readers to haiku in a way that feels inviting rather than instructional. Children explore the form through a delightful collection of poems centered on penguins bursting with personality. Each poem feels lively and expressive. The result is a charming blend of structure and storytelling. Narrative skills are quietly reinforced, and vocabulary expands along the way, all while readers spend time with these curious, endearing birds.
Haiku for You by Anthony J. D’Amato is a children’s book devoted entirely to haiku. It is especially well-suited for ages three to seven, given the tone and subject matter. Still, anyone interested in a quick and enjoyable introduction to haiku will find something to enjoy here.
Haikus are sometimes seen as intimidating due to their strict rules. Yet those same constraints are what give the form its striking elegance. This collection makes that point clearly. Many of the poems are lighthearted, even silly at times, but they remain beautifully crafted. The contrast works well and keeps the reading experience fresh.
This is very much a learn-as-you-read book. Educational value is woven throughout, never feeling forced. Just as important, the author’s enjoyment of language is evident on every page. That sense of fun is contagious. It recalls the spirit of Dr. Seuss, where playful experimentation lifts the entire experience. The joy behind these haikus becomes clearer the longer you linger with them.
Both children and adults will enjoy watching this penguin cast move through their world in neat, poetic lines. There is warmth here, along with wit and imagination.
Haiku for You offers knowledge, creativity, and visual appeal in equal measure. The engaging illustrations and D’Amato’s confident command of haiku make this a pleasure to read. It has all the makings of a bedtime favorite, one that families return to again and again.
Pages: 36 | ASIN : B0F4PXF1CZ
Dirty South Haiku
Dirty South Haiku sketches a childhood and young life shaped by family legends, Southern landscapes, and the mix of sweetness and grit that sits in so many memories. The book moves through tiny scenes. Grandmas with sharp edges, gumbo secrets, cousins who grow strange, drums and guitars, pageants, honeysuckles, hot sauce, hoodoo, moonshine, and music that hums through it all. Each haiku captures one quick flash. Together, they paint a loose but vivid portrait of a Southern girl growing up around beauty, chaos, and deep roots.
While reading, I found myself smiling at the warmth tucked into these short lines. The poems feel plainspoken and familiar. I liked how the author keeps the tone light, even when hinting at hard things. Nothing gets weighed down. The rhythm stays airy. A poem might nod toward heartbreak or trouble, then slip into a memory of food or song. That contrast felt honest. Life in these pages is messy, yet the speaker holds it with affection. I felt that softness, and I enjoyed it.
Some scenes passed so fast that I wanted a fuller picture, but that is part of the charm. The book plays with nostalgia in a way that feels almost slippery. One moment, we are with a machete-wielding grandmother. Next, we are at a pageant. Then, suddenly, moonshine under a night sky. The jumpiness gave the book a dreamy, scrapbook vibe. I loved that loose flow.
I would recommend Dirty South Haiku for readers who enjoy poetry that is easy to slip into and full of mood and memory. It fits anyone who likes Southern culture, family stories, or short poems that carry a lot of heart.
Pages: 39 | ASIN : B0DXQG5C42
Celebrating Small Victories
Lalibela is a book of poetry that wanders through memory, love, pain, Blackness, faith, and survival, shared through snapshots of memories filled with real emotions that hit the reader hard, and amplify the realities of Black life. What inspired you to write this particular collection of poems?
I am so grateful for the opportunity to talk about this collection.
This work was part of an intended series, picking up from where a previous work, Black Architects, left off. There was this and a prequel to Black Architects called Dearest. Unfortunately, the latter was stolen from my storage unit, but Lalibela survived. I was very much moved by my community and the struggles that I witnessed/experienced. When I look around me, there are people living unglorified lives, battling day in and day out to survive. I also see triumph, I see joy, I see grit, I see humor, I see love. The scene of backs breaking under hard work, celebrating on Sundays in church and lending a hand, set a very heartfelt rhythm in my mind. This was the rhythm to which my hands went to work to capture the sanctity of what we lived. The pieces, in turn, celebrate simply getting through the day and all other seemingly small victories.
I was also partly inspired by “Of the Coming of John” by W.E.B DuBois as well as the Allegory of the Cave by Plato. Being in the motions of experience sometimes means that the very thing that is taking place is lost on your eyes precisely because of its proximity to you. The burden, weariness, revelations and love carried by the protagonists in these two stories felt familiar to me. Having experienced the world outside of my neighborhood and family inspired an awakening of sorts that stirred a deeper love and admiration for the persons around me.
I love my community and I wanted to do justice to show just what made it so special to me. I was inspired by the coming architects of our tomorrow, (specifically my niece who was around 1 at the time and my nephew who was just a fetus), that will inherit and take charge of the world that I must one day forfeit. It was important to me to pass down my own legacy within the greater legacy of this community. I wanted to explore the nuances of ‘home’ and in a lot of ways this is my letting go of what I think ‘home’ should look like. The neighborhood is in the hands of a different young now; that narrative of its character no longer belongs to me, it belongs to the coming generation of architects that must rise to the task of defining and defending it.
Were there any poems that were particularly difficult to write? If so, why?
Most of the poems were difficult to write. The time they were written, in 2018, was turbulent for me. There was a death in my community, one that I managed to blame myself for and I was battling a number of things personally. Among these battles were crippling panic attacks. I would become completely incapacitated for any number of hours and then once I was functional again, I would hit the page. During this time, I thought a lot about mortality and I wondered about the things that really mattered in life. I found myself in this picture of the universe, small and mighty and I was thus able to blend easier into the flow of things on a larger scale. I realized how my life meant more when spent in communion with the Most High and in service of those around me. Being a vessel for Christ in this way meant that I had to be pure, so the task was to confront the world in me in writing and to speak truth to power as an honest and accurate witness to all that occurred within my realm. This made it difficult to write because I would have to face those lives and those faces who were written into the lines of each of the pieces. I had to live the baring of soul that made me feel naked – in the eyes of the Lord and the eyes of the people on whom I depended on and whom depended upon me. I felt so exposed. The lesson was this: there really is no hiding place in all of Creation.
How did you go about organizing the poems in the book? Was there a specific flow or structure you were aiming for?
I wanted the poems to speak to one another, so I arranged them in a way that they kind of flow into each other. Here’s a fun fact: you know how most movies have a love scene or a romantic storyline? I wanted to integrate that into the pulse and beat of the collection so I wrote “And When On Days” to give the collection that added bit of romance. The collection creates a certain type of world, like a mini neighborhood, and I wanted every representation and expression of love present in it.
Have you received any feedback from readers that surprised or moved you?
I think that when the Most High puts it in the hearts of man to be moved by these words from my soul, then there will be more readers. As of now, any feedback is welcomed and the invitation is extended to chance upon these waters in time.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
Lalibela holds within its reams the fatigue and redemption of a working class family of the African Diaspora in the West. The lively avenues, bus routes, love lives and cultures preserved in memory and in real-time as if frozen in place from another, happier time. Retaining a legacy of teaching its young hard truths about survival, identity, achievement, failure, faith, death, resilience, life, love and hate.
As concepts evolve, facts change and truth disrobes, Lalibela is an expression and legacy of survival. Within this small community with limited resources people ponder existentially, pray colossal prayers, and resuscitate grit mouth-to-mouth. Named after a town in Ethiopia that is home to the legendary rock hewn churches, Lalibela is the sanctuary for a piece of mind and a direction to that inner place of belonging that travels with us all as we navigate our various and difficult realities. Simply, Lalibela is home.
LITERARY TITAN 