Praise Song for My Children

New and Selected Poems

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

• Publisher: Autumn House Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781938769542
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Colecciones literarias

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.

IV

Poems from:

THE RIVER IS RISING

AUTUMN HOUSE PRESS, 2007

I will bring back my exiled people. . .

they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. . .

—AMOS 9:14

THE RIVER IS RISING

a song for Liberian women

The river is rising, and this is not a flood.

After years of drought, the ground, hardened

and caked in blood, in dry places, here we are, today.

Riverbanks are swelling with the incoming tide,

coming in from the Atlantic just beyond the ridge

of rolling hills and rocks in Monrovia.

Finally, here we stand at the banks!

Finally, here we are, see how swiftly

the tide rushes in to fill the land with salt.

Fish and crabs and the huge clams and shrimps—

all the river’s creatures are coming in with the tide.

The river is rising, but this is not a flood.

Do not let your eye wander away from this scene.

Yes, all the bones below the Mesurado or the St. Paul

or Sinoe or the Loffa River will be brought up

to land so all the overwhelming questions

can once more overwhelm us.

But they are bringing in our lost sister

on a high stool, and there she stands, waving at those

who in refusing to die, simply refused to die.

This is not a song for Ellen alone. This is a song

for Mapue and Tenneh and all the Ellens there are.

This is a song for Kimah and Musu and Massa.

This is for Nyeneplue and Nyenoweh, for Kou and Glayee

and Korto, for the once solitary woman of war.

This is a song so Wani will also dance.

This is a song for that small girl-child who came out

just this morning. They are still seeking a name

to call her—a river name, a name from the water

and from the fire too. That solitary mother in flight

will no longer birth her child by the roadside

where shells were her baby’s first bed.

Let the womb quiver!

Let church bells jingle!

Let hundreds of drums pound, Klan-klan-teh!

Let men bring out old trumpets

so the wind will take flight!

Let that small pepper bird on the tree branch

cry and sing no more the solitary song.

Let the Mesurado behind my home or what was

my home or still is or maybe, maybe, who cares?

The river is rising, but this is not a flood.

Let no man stand between us

and the river again!

IN THE RUINED CITY: A POEM FOR MONROVIA

In the Ruined City, the water flaps lightly

against the beach at night.

It is August, after too many years,

the rain still pours down like stones.

The Atlantic always knows when to go to sleep,

but all the girls roam dark nights

and men have forgotten they are still men.

Monrovia has lost its name.

The ocean roars like wild fire.

It roars like a hungry lion at dawn,

like the whirlwind.

In the ruined city, all the girls

have legs made from plastic weapons,

and the boys pretend it is okay

for the once beautiful girls to walk

around on plastic legs.

There is little time for weeping,

and all the world stands silent.

There are no more trumpets or drums.

The dancer who lost his legs

in the war now sits by the roadside, waiting.

It is something to lose your legs to a war,

they say, to Charles Taylor’s ugly war,

where the fighter cannot recall why he still fights.

The men have forgotten they used to be men,

and the women sit by the roadside wondering

what has happened to this land.

If those outside of here do not come,

Liberia will drown in this rain.

Outside my window, the rain taps hard

in Old Road Sinkor, for my homecoming.

Only the rain knows how to cry.

CITY

At night, it is like fire

spreading beneath us.

This vast city

aflame, and the plane

groaning.

The city is more beautiful

from the sky at night.

At noon, it looks like

a worn-out garage,

a thing in the middle

of swamp country.

All the buildings are worn-out,

rusted to the bone

of steel, twisted

to make way so life

can go on.

Everything is bent and broken

along the hilltops.

I touch air to see if air

is still there.

The touchdown,

and we appear all worn-out,

too, like the city, broken.

All the birds

moved out long ago.

The trees too.

AN ELEGY FOR THE ST. PETER’S CHURCH MASSACRED

I fled the war in that first ceasefire.

Missing all the other wars, the other massacres,

the burning and re-burning of Monrovia,

the silencing again of those who had already

been silenced in that first sweep.

My neighbors envied me through dark-eyed lashes,

skeletal cheekbones, and hunger.

I envy those who were massacred.

Those who never saw their killers approach

with heavy boot steps that made no sound

in the dark morning hours.

Those who died in colonies, in one huge group

at the President’s order.

They arrived in death, holding hands—

mothers, hugging their babies, men,

helping their wives over the hills of death;

tal...