Praise
Praise for Urban Verses Titles
Praise for Urban Verses
In my library (and I hope it's a book that soon sits on your shelf) it doesn't get any better than Urban Verses
by Alexis Spencer-Byers. Most of us won't ever take the opportunity to actually live in her community, but after
reading the stories, poetry and verses you'll think it must have been where you've spent a good portion of your
life… You'll discover that you're not only walking her street, talking to her friends, being scared of her fears,
meeting her people, worshipping in her church, gaining and losing and feeling and loving her stuff-but it's now
your stuff as well. Urban Verses not only makes me want to be a reader, but also stirs the desires and needs to
be a writer...
- Douglas C. Eltzroth
Songwriter; Director, Collage
This moving, intimate collection is a celebration of life at the heart level of community, with all its love, anger,
pain, fear, levity and loss-as well as the occasional and timely ray of transcendent light from above. Ms. Spencer-Byers'
writing digs deep, unearthing the grace in daily life and the divine lessons of human interaction and relationship.
Yet her expressions never feel didactic. There is an honesty and humility at work in them that lets readers feel
they are learning along with the writer the often amusing, sometimes harrowing, and always compelling lessons of
faith found in Urban Verses. These poems and stories have a fascinatingly 'reversible' quality; as the author looks
out on the people and events surrounding her, she also turns her hope-and-faith-colored lens inward and allows
us to see a bit of what God is doing within-a beautiful work in progress on a pilgrim soul in the urban spiritual
landscape.
- Jennifer Merri Parker
Freelance writer; Contributing Editor, The Banner magazine
Always grounded in a refreshing vividness of life and people (a gospel choir's enthusiasm, a failed adoption, falling
in love, a broken relationship, an interracial friendship, reckoning with a household burglary), these writings
offer a beautiful hymn to human joy, fragility, the possibility of redemption, and the challenges of pursuing life
in friendship with God and community. The miracle is, all becomes transformed into a journey of grace.
- Chris P. Rice
Author, Grace Matters and More Than Equals
Urban Verses is water to the soul-rich with meaning and value, from the tightly focused poems to the engaging stories
to the author's vulnerable sharing of her own experiences. The lovely, lyrical language and detailed images are
haunting, and I know I will return to these words again for inspiration, and to continue to be provoked to think
and feel.
- Sundee Tucker Frazier
Author, Check All That Apply
Praise for From Oppression To Jubilee Justice - Dr. John M. Perkins
This book burns with a passion for the Church to free the
oppressed by incarnating Jubilee justice among the poor.
President, John M. Perkins Foundation