Audrey Whitehead: Poetry Based on Love

Love lies at the center of Audrey Ella Whitehead’s poetry and life, she says.

“Whether it’s love for a man, love for another woman or love for a child,” it is “the central theme” of her art, now a new book entitled “The Heart and Soul of the Poet in Me.”

Whitehead, 34, said her book of 29 poems expresses what she cannot always say.

“More than anything, my poetry is expressing what’s inside myself and transferring it to paper,” she said. “I’m a talker, and I enjoy talking to people, but these are things I don’t always share in conversation. There are times when things have to be written to be captured.”

Stand tall my beautiful black man

Be proud, be strong

Be loving, be gentle

Conquer the world with me at your side. . . .

Whitehead, who moved to Santa Ana in 1965 from Memphis, Tenn., also is a teacher and a religious person, having studied for six years at the Bethany Christian Bible Teaching Institute in Los Angeles.

As often as five or six days a week, Whitehead, who lives with her sister, can be found at the Starlight Baptist Church in Santa Ana where she is Sunday school superintendent, a choir member and even an aerobics teacher.

“My religion is a relationship, it’s a relationship with Jesus Christ,” she said. “He is a companion of mine who has seen me through an awful lot. And if I could do anything in the whole world, it would be teaching in the ministry.”

Teaching allows her to combine her talent for expression and her need to share herself, she says.

“Teaching is where I find the strength I need as well as the comfort I need,” Whitehead said. “You can take away all my clothes, my jewelry, my shallow stuff, but leave me my teaching.”

When Whitehead entered school in Orange County 26 years ago, she said, her family lived on the east side of town, the predominantly white and Hispanic side. Most of the blacks were on the west side, and she was her class’s only black girl.

“There was me and one black male, so it was kind of a transition, being that I came from an all-black community,” she said. “But I was always an outgoing person, and a social person, so that made it easier for me.”

In fact, Whitehead said the outgoing side of her admires the expressiveness of others, especially high-fashion models.

“I love the way models express themselves, their exaggerated looks,” Whitehead said. “I love clothes and jewelry. That’s where the vain part of me comes out.”

The other part, the poet, uses art to help understand the world.

“I write when I am coming to the knowledge of something, or becoming aware of something,” she said. “If I stop, sit down and write, that helps me to understand.”