Joshua’s Tree

About the Book

Joshua Binks, a poor black boy growing up with his single mother set against the racial background of Southern America during the early 1930s, has a very vivid imagination in possessing a secret divine, as his life unfolds, and is seen through his innocent eyes and a pure heart of a child in infancy and youth. Joshua’s world is inhabited by fictional characters of fairytale and make believe muses who come to life within Joshua’s fantasy dream world, as it is this setting where we are led into Joshua’s world of animated and colorful characters open to his bemusement, as Joshua also has a unique and mysteriously transcending connection that is tied to the trees that often whisper his name within this world, taking his mind into a place of fantasy. During his childhood, Joshua has an accident, which changes the course of his life and takes away his ability to communicate without stuttering and so adds to his disappointment and disadvantages in his life. As the events of Joshua’s tragic life unfold, we are also led back and forth into his world of fantasy. Joshua also experiences racial prejudice and discrimination from his peers when he fails to enlist into the army and is made to work as a kitchen porter, although in his waking dreams where he relies upon the narrative of the stories that were once etched into his imagination, he is still very much frowned upon and looked down and treated unfairly. As a kitchen porter in the army, Joshua also becomes the concern and a friend to his fellow comrades and potential soldiers in the making, although they seem to pity his disposition. As his relationships begin to blossom amongst the elements of racial tension, it is under this climate that things begin to develop as Joshua is taken under the wing of a young Christian girl who attempts to teach him to read and write. But just when things appear to be progressing, once again, the racial tension boils over until there is a bitter feud involving this simple and naïve Joshua, which results in him trying to help his friend escape, and by doing so, he is made to be the victim of a tragic event.

About the Author

As a writer and a poet and as an artist and performer, I have always felt the need to convey my thoughts through the artistic expression of words and music and even through the unspoken medium of movement and motion, as much as it is up to the creativity of a writer, which is for me to capture or to record these moments as they unfold and take shape revealing their naked truths in the purest of forms of their suggestions and clues toward a revelation unknowingly becoming attuned and responsive to the reciprocal mind. As I have come to learn and engage in the process of the languages and the words, also each independently has its own hidden inner depth when spoken, or as when heard or as when read, as each processed word proceeds one after the other, building a foundation and creating layer upon layer until its volume is felt. Whether I choose to promote this idea upon a line of questioning or examining or analyzing, a stand of truth by capturing a piece of reality or whether I am entranced by the enchantment of something more sublime like a mystery or a fantasy is even somewhat inspirational to me as to how my thoughts of expression and energy are channeled through such a medium and a basic quality in challenging my ability to write paragraph after paragraph and page after page until, ordinarily, the mundane of perfection of the subjective object is met and begins to excite me. As writing is also very much an internal journey toward understanding the inner self and examination of the reflective world that surrounds us all insomuch that we are constantly redefining and readjusting to all that is apparently so and open to see. But as to whether we can learn to accept through interpretation of all that is extended before us, it is also to glance in a mirror and to attempt to recognize if all is as it appears to be.