Miami, FL -- Growing up as a foster child until the wee age of nine, nineteen year old Michael Beckford was striving to find himself, his family and his dreams. He was once a prodigy of the state, a statistic of his impoverished community and a kid who grew up poor in physical possessions.

It was hard for Michael to believe that those who have dreams will succeed, considering that he had but ten items of clothing in his possession. He grew up with the boundaries of not being able to take a shower everyday, while living with nine other children. His caretakers were very old and one has deceased Edna Lewis while the other Alton Lewis is in a senior home with mental instabilities.

Eleven years later and over one hundred poems credited to his name, Michael Beckford has defeated the odds with the help of two parents that adopted him. Mark and Denise Beckford have helped him to realize that dreams are for all people, even those that are poor in possessions can be rich in spirit. Many would say that he’s found his dream. A dream for words, a dream for people and most importantly a dream for what God wants him to accomplish in his life.

Michael is an entrepreneur in a sense that he knows how to draw a crowd and invest his time in people as a servant of God. Michael is an African-American sensation at the young age of nineteen, having already written two books with one being published Speak UP! Poetry. This book and more is available for download on his exclusive site, www.speakbooks.com. He is currently a student at Florida A&M University and you can find him in the Broadcast Journalism department.