She has written countless textbooks, children’s stories, a US nationally syndicated column, prayers and music, but her latest works are a first.

And although they are a first, some of the work in Melodye Micere Van Putten’s two books of poetry have been in the making for 15 years.

Mrs. Van Putten, perhaps best know in Bermuda for the Ashay Programme, a rites of passage history-based curriculum which was taught in most Government Middle Schools, has just released ‘Obamatyme: Election Poetry’, and ‘Soul Poems: Life as Fertile Ground’ – a book she first started when she was a professor at Johnson C. Smith University, in North Carolina.

It was her experiences there that formed the start of ‘Soul Poems’ which looks at issues such as identity, sisterhood and challenges. “I dressed as you see me (in African fashions) and the people there were just not accustomed to someone who looked like me; not that they weren’t black, they weren’t wearing African garb,” she said.

“I went to this very important event and everyone was dressed up and I was dressed up, but people seemed to almost shun me like they were so uncomfortable. I left early, because it just was uncomfortable.

“But as I was retrieving my wrap a cleaning lady said, ‘you look beautiful, and I know that none of the Negroes here have told you so, so I just want to tell you’. So I came home that weekend to Philadelphia and I met with a girlfriend who said, ‘You need to start writing about these experiences’. That is how I started writing a series of poems out of the experiences that I was having.”

She added: “There are poems around identity, around sisterhood, challenges and affirmations, because I have experienced all those things. I still didn’t think that it [‘Soul Poems’] would end up being this.”

‘Obamatyme: Election Poetry’ chronicles President Obama’s presidential election campaign – a campaign Mrs. Van Putten worked on as a volunteer. “There wasn’t any intention to write a book, I was working the campaign and there were so many things that was happening that were sickening [racial slurs],” she said.

“And how do I release this, poetry is my natural release and I began writing poetry whether it was on Sarah Palin [Republican candidate for Vice President and now former Alaskan Governor] or whatever and the next thing I knew, I had a book of poetry.”

On the historic election day, November 4, 2008, Mrs. Van Putten, who is married to a Bermudian, was at the Philadelphia campaign headquarters. “It was just an extraordinary day and by the evening of course I was exhausted.

“I stayed in the campaign office until 8 p.m., then went with my fellow co-workers to watch the election returns, but I had faded out in an hour.

“I went home, changed my clothes, got in my comfortable chair, put my feet up, had my champagne and then my sister and brother-in-law called and said, ‘we have to go somewhere, we’re coming to get you’.

“They came and got me and I dragged myself out, but we went back to where I knew folks were going to be celebrating.

“It was just incredible and I am so glad to this day that they brought me out, because of the euphoria.

“I’ll never forget it and after that I ended up writing three or four more poems. It was just something else.”

The books $15 each and are available at True Reflections, in Chancery Lane, Hamilton.