UNBECOMING. The Miseducation of a Poet - Taquarius Ford

UNBECOMING: The Miseducation of a Poet

Before the world got to you, you were whole. Before the classroom taught you obedience instead of curiosity. Before religion handed you guilt before it ever offered you grace. Before music handed you an identity pre-packaged and shrink-wrapped. Before the culture told you who to respect, who to mock, what to want, how to dress and how to move. You were whole. A signal that hadn't been interfered with yet. Then life started. And everybody got to work on you immediately. Nobody asked permission.

In this raw, honest, and deeply personal exploration, poet and speaker Taquarius Ford traces the invisible curriculum that shaped him from childhood through adulthood. From memorizing rap lyrics that functioned as life instructions to a hotel lobby encounter with Jesse Jackson that cost him more than he knew, Ford dissects how school, religion, music, Hollywood, and the myth of race worked together as one seamless programming system. 

UNBECOMING is not a self-help book. It is a deprogramming manual. It is for every person who has ever followed a script they did not write, performed a character they did not choose, and sensed somewhere deep and quiet that the person underneath all of that performance was still waiting to be found. Drawing on street philosophy, ancient wisdom, and hard-won personal truths, he maps exactly how the spell gets cast and more importantly how it gets broken. This book is the way back. Back to becoming whole.