Tourmalines: Beyond the Ebony Portal is a collection of poems with a focus on Black history and African Americans, named and unnamed. Black lives are represented as various, colorful gemstones and themes corresponding to the colorful tourmaline gemstones with a variety of characteristics and healing properties. Because every tourmaline is different, one can use the stones as metaphors for the diversity of African Americans who are mixed with people of various origins: African, Native American, European and Euro American, Caribbean, South American, and Asian. This cultural melange produces in Tourmalines a rich, colorful collection of poetic gemstones.