|
Books by
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley
Before the Palm Could Bloom
/
Becoming Ebony
* * * *
*
Bio-Sketch
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley,
born in Tugbakeh (Maryland County, Liberia) and grew up in
Monrovia, is the author of
Before the Palm Could Bloom: Poems
of Africa, which retells her experiences in the Liberian
civil war. Her second book of poems is Becoming Ebony.
She attended the
prestigious College of West Africa (CWA), a United Methodist
High School which was founded in 1839. Her college days were
marked by Liberia’s political unrest in the late 1970s, which
resulted in the country's first military coup in 1980. Prior to the Liberian civil
war, Wesley was awarded a World Bank
Fellowship to do graduate studies at Indiana University in
Bloomington, IN, where she obtained a Master of Science degree
in English Education. After completion of her studies, she
returned with her family to Liberia.
She and her family became
caught up in the Liberian civil war when rebels overran Monrovia
in 1990. They were forced to flee their home in Congo Town, a
suburb near Monrovia, and lived in the Charles Taylor held
territory where they experienced the torture that classified
Taylor's warfare. She and her family thereafter immigrated
to the United States in 1991, having lost possessions and family
during the continuing Liberian civil war.
She has taught English and
Literature classes at the University of Liberia in Liberia, and
at a few American universities and colleges. Her first book of
poems, Before The Palm Could Bloom: Poems of Africa (New
Issues Press, 1998) successfully captures some of her war
experiences. Wesley writes poems of the Liberian civil war and
of the devastation it has wrought. And in poems of village
life and customs, the city of Monrovia, the rites of childhood
and adolescence, Wesley records for the reader a world that has
been forever changed. Wesley's poems incorporate many African
voices, and range in tone from sorrow and longing, to humor and
ironic wit.
Her second book of poems,
Becoming Ebony,
(second place winner of the Crab Orchard Award Series 2nd book
open competition) has just been released from Southern Illinois
University Press.
Four years ago she returned
to school upon the publication of her first book of poems in
1998, and completed a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing in
June 2002. Her work has appeared in The Cortland
Review, Crab Orchard Review, Midday Moon, and New
Orleans Review.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Ph.D. / Assistant
Professor of English / Penn State University / Altoona Campus /
3000 Ivyside Park / Altoona, PA 16601-3760 / Office: 125
Miscagna Family Center for Performing Arts / (814)949-5501 /
Fax: (814)949-5368 /
Patriciajabbehwesley.net
/
http://www.myliberianvoice.com/blog/ /
poetryforpeace
She lives with her husband,
Mlen-Too, and their four (often) adorable children.
Wesley writes with clear-eyed lyricism about her ruthless and
beleaguered homeland, and the bittersweet relief and loss of the
diaspora. Her poems are scintillating and vivid, quickly
sketched fables shaped by recollections of childhood playmates,
moonlight and ocean surf, hibiscus hedges, and big pots of
boiling soup. But these paeans to home blend with percussive
visions of falling rockets and murdered children, sharp
recollections of hunger and mourning, and a survivor's careful
gratitude in a land of cold winds and rationed sunlight, her
carefully measured memories and cherished dreams of return.
--Booklist
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley's The River is Rising is both brilliant
and heartbreaking. Survivor of the brutal Liberian Civil War,
Wesley bears witness to a life she lost to that war, and to what
it means to be a refugee who has remade herself.... "To every
war," she says simply, "There are no winners." .... I am in awe
of these beautiful, necessary poems, and the glory and largesse
of Wesley s vision. --Cynthia Hogue
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley's poetry is heartfelt, wise, and alive...
One senses in her that rare combination of someone who has been
deeply schooled in both literature and life, and who has
integrated those two into a deeply felt and shrewd worldview.—Stuart
Dybek
In Patricia Jabbeh Wesley's third collection of poems, the poet
writes about being caught between two cultures: her native
Liberia and her adopted America. The struggles of the immigrant
are contrasted with her memories of the Liberian Civil War.—Publisher
* * * *
*
Table
* * *
* *
Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf (video) *
* * * *
update 4 October 2008 |
