Böcker av Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

Poetry. African Studies. In BEFORE THE PALM COULD BLOOM, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley writes poems of the Liberian civil war and of the devastation it has wrought. And In poems ofvillage life and customs, the city life of Monrovia, the rites of childhoodand adolescence, Wesley records for the reader a world that has been foreverchanged. Wesley's poems incorporate many African voices, and range in tonefrom sorrow and longing, to humor and ironic wit.

Breaking the Silence is the first comprehensive collection of literature from Liberia since before the nation’s independence.

Poetry, Short Stories, Nonfiction, Photos, Art and Book Reviews by Daniel Barnum-Swett, Tony Barnstone, Austin Bennett, Kimberley Blaeser, Chris Bullard, .chisaroakwu., Stewe Claeson, Chard DeNiord, Ty Dettioff, Richard Dinges, Anita Endrezze, Michele Feeney, Courtney Felle, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Jerry Gates, Julia Mary Gibson, Jenn Givhan, Joy Harjo, Elizabeth Hellstern, Sandra Hunter, Richard Jackson, Patricia Spears Jones, Whitney Judd, Sarah Kaminski, Barry Kitterman, Joan Larkin, Angela LaVoie, Sara Levine, Jennifer Martelli, Tim Miller, Patricia Colleen Murphy, Naomi Shihab Nye, Martin Penman, Samuel Piccone, Herbert Plummer, Sarah Priestman, Maj Ragain, Linsey Royce, Anele Rubin, David St. John, Sarah Elizabeth Schantz, Danielle Sellers, Art Smith, Jane Hipkins Sobie, Meredith Striker, Melissa Studdard, Emma Claire Sweeney, John Tait, Shelly Taylor, Marina Tsvetayeva, Heidi Vanderbilt, George Wallace, Donley Watt, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Ann Leshy Wood

Praise Song for My Children celebrates twenty-one years of poetry by one of the most significant African poets of this century. Patricia Jabbeh Wesley guides us through the complex and intertwined highs and lows of motherhood and all the roles that it encompasses: parent, woman, wife, sister, friend. Her work is deeply personal, drawing from her own life and surroundings to convey grief, the bleakness of war, humor, deep devotion, and the hope of possibility. These poems lend an international voice to the tales of motherhood, as Wesley speaks both to the African and to the Western experience of motherhood, particularly black motherhood. She pulls from African motifs and proverbs, utilizing the poetics of both the West and Africa to enrich her striking emotional range. Leading us to the depths of mourning and the heights of tender love, she responds to American police brutality, writing "To be a black woman is to be a woman, / ready to mourn," and remembers a dear friend who is at once "mother and wife and friend and pillar / and warrior woman all in one." Wesley writes poetry that moves with her through life, land, and love, seeing with eyes that have witnessed both national and personal tragedy and redemption. Born in Tugbakeh, Liberia and raised in Monrovia, Wesley immigrated to the United States in 1991 to escape the Liberian civil war. In this moving collection, she invites us to join her as she buries loved ones, explores long-distance connections through social media, and sings bittersweet praises of the women around her, of mothers, and of Africa.

Described by African scholar and literary critic Chielozona Eze as “one of the most prolific African poets of the twenty-first century,” Patricia Jabbeh Wesley composed When the Wanderers Come Home during a four-month visit to her homeland of Liberia in 2013. She gives powerful voice to the pain and inner turmoil of a homeland still reconciling itself in the aftermath of multiple wars and destruction. Wesley, a native Liberian, calls on deeply rooted African motifs and proverbs, utilizing the poetics of both the West and Africa to convey her grief. Autobiographical in nature, the poems highlight the hardships of a diaspora African and the devastation of a country and continent struggling to recover. When the Wanderers Come Home is a woman’s story about being an exile, a survivor, an outsider in her own country and is her cry for the Africa that is being lost in wars across the continent, creating more wanderers and world citizens.Patricia Jabbeh Wesley is an associate professor of English and creative writing at Pennsylvania State University–Altoona. She has four other books of poetry, including Where the Road Turns and Becoming Ebony, part of the Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry.