As-Salāmu `Alaykum. Super excited over opportunities and a new prospective on life. About to embark on a full blown project in conjunction with my cousin . Pouring over several letters,articles essays, writings sent to me a product of years two cousins from distant lands. Reading the letters precious jewels to me I held onto for over twenty years knowing in my heart a reunion of our artful souls would unite in a spectacular way. With that said the "Portrait of Soldier" from the pages of history...the Patterson family which lives in Moscow received a letter from Soviet Far East. The letter informed them that this year the Komsomolsk , city authorities have decided to put a memorial plaque honoring Soviet citizen Lloyd Patterson , a soldier/internationalist, on the radio committee where he had worked in 1941-1942. .. His son James a poet and a prose writer. He is a member of the Soviet Writers Union . His latest book titled "The Breath of Larch" is about his African ancestors and his father, a Black American who found happiness in the USSR. The larch is a tree with soft needles which it loses in autumn. It grows in Siberia Far East where James father Lloyd Patterson died of the concussion he suffered in the first months of World War 11. The book's title is symbolic: it tells about the Patterson family tree growing on the Soviet soil. A Hampton University graduate, Lloyd Patterson could not find a job in the USA, it was in the early 1930s, during the Great Depression Black workers were dismissed and last to be employed. Leaving the US along with other Black actors and film specialist invited to the Soviet Union to shoot a film about racial discrimination in Southern American states. Patterson applied for the job, got it and left for the Soviet Union". Thus history is repeating itself with my invitation to Russia an opportunity to unite and celebrate my cousin James Patterson and our family . Working with a Director who along with other writers and people who know the historic story of Poet extraordinaire Jim Patterson . Life is what we make it ... Peace and stay bless inshallah ...the one and only Lepadah
Where can we find Mr Patterson's poetry now? And his mother's art, her paintings. I would love to see images of her paintings. As a sometime poet and painter myself, I am interested in reading and looking at works of other people. Especially those with amazing unknown stories.
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