J. Harold Ellens, PhD (Written before he passed away)
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
I am pleased and honored to write a letter of commendation and recommendation for
Alicea Davis. She is an elegant woman of great dignity and style, who possesses the
soul of a poet and the heart of a healer. Her poetry is focused on social and spiritual
reconciliation between conflicted groups, generational divisions, and ethnic opposites.
It will bring you to tears of relief that at last you have found someone who adequately
understands the soul-wounding of racial tensions and community alienations. Her poetry
unites us rather than reminding us of our difference.
Alicea’s presentation of her poetry at our bi-monthly New American Lyceum, a forum of
intellectual and artistic performance, moved the entire audience to earnest reflection and
sturdy discussion, while regaling us with a delightfully entertaining presentation. Ms. Davis is a notable presence and platform phenomenon that is both awesome and
irresistible. We were all profoundly moved by her deeply meaningful content and
amazing style.
Moreover, Alicea is wholly believable, authentic, and passionate. She is a person of
integrity, great virtue, urgency, and absolute dedication to healing the wounds of society
without being judgmental or negative. Her poetry is uniformly expressive of the grief and
sadness of all our human moral damage and soul wounding, caused by the ignorance and
hatred in racial division and its devaluation of all our spirits. Alicea’s message will raise the level of awareness of any audience, as well as the deep spiritual healing of
forgiveness and consolation.
Speaking her own words, from the passion of her own heart, out of the hurts and healings
of her own experience, and the hope and love of her own spirit, Alicea Davis is giving to
the world an overflow of compassion, courage, and consolation. Please give this heroic and articulate woman of marvelous grace your very highest and
best consideration.
Dr. J. Harold Ellens
Michigan Center for Early Christian Studies
University of Michigan
Professor, Ecumenical Theological Seminary of Detroit
