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Biography
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Jeannette Drake, born in Newport News, Virginia attended Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) and graduated (High Honors) with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology. Her minors were psychology and history. As a college senior she participated in student protests and marches to integrate drug stores in Hampton, Virginia. Passage of the civil rights bill afforded her an opportunity to secure employment as a caseworker in the Hampton Department of Public Welfare. In this job she regularly heard tales about the ravages of the civil war from the superintendent whose mother apparently held vivid memories. The superintendent also reminded Jeannette that any flag-waving or protests would not be looked upon with kindness. Initially, Jeannette determined eligibility and provided services in the categories then known as Aid to Dependent Children, Aid to the Blind, Old Age Assistance, Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled and General Relief. After two years, Jeannette transferred to Child Welfare where she conducted foster and adoptive home studies, interviewed birth mothers and placed babies for adoption. Since these years as a young caseworker, Jeannette has worked in many capacities in the human service field, always choosing to remain in direct service and avoiding administrative positions. She began to write poetry as a response to working with male adjudicated delinquents whose crimes were related to heroin addiction. A quiet stint as an indexer for the American Psychological Association whetted her appetite for higher education in social work. From Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, she obtained a Masters Degree in Social Work. Her casework field placements were in alcoholism at the Medical College of Virginia, foster care for the state of Virginia, and social work education at Virginia Union University. After graduation, she worked as a family, individual and group therapist at Family and Children's Services in Richmond, Virginia and taught courses in human behavior and the social environment to juniors and seniors in the social work program at Virginia Union University. In 1980 Jeannette began to work as a poet in the classroom for Richmond Arts & Humanities Center. She began as a Clinical Social Worker for Richmond Public Schools in 1981 working expressly for a number of years in a federally funded program with students designated as Emotionally Disturbed at Westhampton School before transferring to regular school social work. In 1991 Jeannette graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. In 2001 she obtained licensure from the Commonwealth of Virginia, Board of Social Work, Health Professions as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. A charter member of Richmond Chapter, National Conference of Artists, Jeannette has performed as a soloist in a gospel choral ensemble, acted in James Baldwin's The Amen Corner, and in 1982 co-founded a Black Writers' Workshop that convened until 1992. She writes poetry, fiction, non-fiction and children's stories. Jeannette's earliest influences were Biblical stories read to by her mother and a Baptist upbringing which included regularly hearing James Weldon Johnson's "The Creation." There was also music, sacred and secular; The Five Blind Boys of Alabama, The Harmonizing Four Gospel Quartet, The Clara Ward Singers, Mahalia Jackson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Wings Over Jordan, and Marian Anderson. Too, there was the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday morning radio and during the week, Glenn Miller, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, George Gershwin and Nat King Cole. Her serious interest in making visual art began through her work with emotionally challenged public school students. In addition to reading, her hobbies include viewing old films, listening to spirituals and anthems, blues, rhythm and blues, gospel, funk, classical, country and western, show tunes, jazz, new age music and dancing in her living room. |
PUBLICATIONS
"Nostalgia" "Mystic" "Springtime in America" "Holy Summit" "Possessed" at www.nathanielturner.com - March 2010
"Time to Move On From Kings of Bling" Letter to the Editor (archive) at www.styleweekly.com - November 11, 2009
"Full Moon Night" at www.nathanielturner.com - February 10, 2009
"...Then God smiled And the light broke..." Response to Inaugural Poem 2009 at www.nathanielturner.com - January 22, 2009
"Tribe" "At Last" at www.nathanielturner.com - January 21, 23, 2009
Drake's page 13 in Go, Tell Michelle: African American Women Write to the New First Lady (on camera) WIVB News 4 Buffalo, NY at www.wivb.com - January 19, 2009
Essay, "The Truth May Not Set Us Free," at www.nathanielturner.com - January 9, 2009
Previously published poems, "My Secret Valentine" "Daughter of Abraham" "Palette" listed in Jeannette Drake table at www.nathanielturner.com - January 9, 2009
Letter (page 13) in Go, Tell Michelle: African American Women Write to the New First Lady at www.npr.org - January 7, 2009
"Meditation for Obama" at www.nathanielturner.com - April 5, 2008
"Parable" at www.nathanielturner.com- August 5, 2007
"I Knew His Face," Daddy, Can I Tell You Something: Black Daughters Speak To Their Fathers, edited by Angela Floyd, Sela Press - March, 2006
Good Friday: Poems by Jeannette Drake (Chapbook) , Richmond - September 2006
"Some Black Ministers Headed on the Wrong Path." Letter to the Editor (Archive) at www.styleweekly.com - December 6, 2006
"Tsunami," "Deliverance," "A Poem for Rudy," "Amazing Grace," in ChickenBones: A Journal at www.nathanielturner.com - February 2005
"Give Peace a Chance," in ChickenBones: A Journal at www.nathanielturner.com - November 2004
"Reality is Mud," in DisabilityWorld at www.disabilityworld.org - June 2004
"Invisible" in Coloring Book: An Eclectic Anthology of Fiction & Poetry by Multicultural Writers, RattleCat Press, Pittsburg - November 2003
"Eve's Daughters," at www.thechrysalisgroup.com - August 2002
"911" in The Book of Hope and The World Healing Book, Beyond Borders Press, Reykjavik, Iceland - April 2003
"How Many Times Did He See the Moon?" in New Virginia Review, Richmond - Fall 2001
"Everybody Wants A Black Man," "God," "The Good News," in The Third Eye: Photographs by Jerome A. Bass, Northlight Publishing, Richmond - February 1999
"Yes M'am," "Conflict," in Honey Hush! An Anthology of African American Women's Humor edited by Daryl Dance, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York - Fall 1998
"My Secret Valentine," in Xavier Review, Xavier University, New Orleans, - Spring 1997
Bulletin! Daughter of Abraham, Pods & Peas: Summer Meditations ( Chapbooks) Creative Words Publishing, Richmond - September 1996
"Summer" in The Chrysalis Newsletter The Chrysalis Group, Richmond - August 1995
"True Gifts," "Refusal," "Safe" in Postcript, J. Boomhouser, Richmond - Summer 1995
"Possibilities" in Tides, University of Richmond - April 1995
"Amazing Grace" in Spirit Magazine Conscious Connection, Richmond - March 1995
"Cinderella Revisited," "October Sabbatical," in The Southern Review, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge - Winter 1995
"1955 Revisited" in Postscript J. Boomhouser, Richmond - Spring/Summer 1994
"Rooster" in Catalyst Magazine, Atlanta - Fall/Winter 1994
"Sunday Jazz," "John Cage Collage in the Marble Hall," in The Southern Review, Baton Rouge - October 1993
"Thanksgiving Ride, 1990" inPostscript, J. Boomhouser, Richmond - Fall 1993
"Trust," "Friend's Meditation" in Postscript, J. Boomhouser, Richmond - Summer 1993
"Palette" in The Southern Review, Louisiana State University - October 1992
"Visit to Dam at Brown's Island" in The Richmond Quarterly The Richmond Literature & History Quarterly, Inc., Richmond - Fall 1991
"Train Ride," "Daughter of Abraham," "On the Edge," in New Virginia Review, Richmond - Spring 1991
"Next Time," "Eating," in Catalyst, Catalyst Magazine, Atlanta - Spring 1990
"A Room of Her Own," "Forecast" in Obsidian II: Black Literature in Review North Carolina State University, Raleigh - Winter 1988
"For My First Husband and the War We Missed," "Suicide of a Young Girl,"in Obsidian II: Black Literature in Review North Carolina State University, Raleigh - Summer - 1985"
"Apartheid" in Northlight Northlight Publishing, Richmond - February 1988
"Missing Children" in Callaloo: A Journal of Afro-American and African Arts and Letters John Hopkins University, Baltimore - Summer 1987
"The Ferry Rides," "The Sanctuary" in The Richmond Quarterly Literature and History Quarterly, Inc., Richmond - Spring 1984
"Electronic Blues" in Richmond Arts Magazine,Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond - Spring 1984
"My Body" in The Sun The Sun Publishing Co. Inc., Chapel Hill - August 1982
"Lunchtime," "Flowerlady," "The Break," "May is the Month That Roses Bloom," in Obsidian: Black Literature in Review Wayne State University, Detroit - Summer/Winter 1981
Alpha and Omega Triton Press March, Boulder Creek, CA - 1979
"I'm Gonna Always" in Black Forum Black Forum, Inc., Bronx - Winter 1977-78
"Lady Dressed in Blue" in Obsidian State University College, Fredonia, N.Y. - 1977
"They Said He Was" in Richmond Arts Magazine Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond - Fall 1975
"Cumulus Clouds," "Eternal Life" in The Door Open Door Publishing, Richmond - July 1975