A very dear friend asked Loretta, "When are you going to write a novel and make some real money? You have some great ideas." Her answer for now is this. Novelists take ideas and create stories. Poets take a word and create a universe. If one is blessed to be both, what a gift they are to the world. One day she hopes to write a novel. But today she is a poet and music teacher at Reagan Elementary in Odessa, Texas. She graduated from Ector High School, received a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Texas Tech University and earned a Master's of Elementary Education from the University of Texas at the Permian Basin. Loretta is active in her community through membership in organizations such as Texas Music Educators Association, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and the Permian Basin Poetry Society. She is also a member of the Poetry Society of Texas, the Pennsylvania Poetry Society, the Poetry Society of Oklahoma, Abilene Writer's Guild, the National Federation of Poetry Societies, and the Texas Mountain Trail Writers. Loretta believes kindness is a language in and of itself, she hopes to speak it fluently. She also believes when children speak, listen. There are treasures in the syntax of their innocence. Endorsements: Loretta Walker's Word Ghetto is a rich multi-dimensional kaleidoscope of Life, turning your mind and senses like the Milky Way galaxy, while freeing your heart to embrace your Oneness. Who would have thought Kali, the Black Goddess, was living in West Texas disguised as Loretta Walker? And like Kali, Loretta Walker crushes your separateness with her enchanting dance of Life through the Word Ghetto. Read it and be free. -George E. James, Author of Peeling the Onion: Poems of Spiritual Awakening and Copperhead: Tantric Lessons on Love. Loretta Diane Walker writes with compassionate wisdom and insight-her poems restore humanity. -Naomi Shihab Nye Loretta Walker's Word Ghetto is an astounding book, full of wisdom, compassion, and masterfully woven word magic. Her language speaks with a rich tapestry of emotion, and her poems sing like a saxophone playing the music of her soul. Loretta Walker's vision is huge - she speaks for a whole community of people who are marginalized by the circumstances of their birth. Her poems offer healing, vision and hope." -Diane Frank, Author of Blackberries in the Dream House and Entering the Word Temple In this accomplished book, Loretta Diane Walker, poet, musician and teacher, draws us into her word music, and convinces us to inhabit her deepest concerns -children, race in America, pain and forgiveness, the changing body, the open soul-to revel in language and life with her, to wonder and to grieve. Walker finds beauty so thoroughly entrenched in the quotidian, we are glad to enter her world, even though it is not untarnished. Her fierce poems temper hope with honesty, conviction with clarity of vision. Startlingly fresh without posturing or distraction, they pull us from whatever routine threatens to dull our senses. From the tenderness of the teacher to her young students, through memories of her childhood, and her involvement in the lived experiences of others, she holds a mirror to the revelations of a grounded life. -Mary Kay Rummel, Author of What's Left is the Singing