Becoming Ebony

By Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

Recapturing the celebratory voice of Africa in poems that are both contemporary and traditional, Liberian-born Patricia Jabbeh Wesley weaves lyrical storytelling with oral history and images of Africa and America, revealing powerful insights about the relationship between strength and tragedy--and finding reason to celebrate even in the presence of war, difficulties, and death. Rooted in myths that can be traced to the Grebo tradition, Becoming Ebony portrays Liberian-born Wesley's experiences of village talk and civil war as well as her experiences of the pain of her mother's death and the difficulties of rearing a family away from home in the United States, and explores the questions of living in the African Diaspora. Turning on the African proverb of "the wandering child" and the metaphor of the ebony tree--which is beautiful in life and death-- these poems delve into issues of human suffering and survival, plainly and beautifully chronicling what happens "after the sap is gone."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809325179
• ISBN13: 9780809325177
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Length: 92 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

A beautiful voice and eye

These poems, sited in Kalamazoo MI (and a few other midwestern towns) and in Liberia (Africa) are beautiful. Her voice and her eye, noticing small things, juxtaposing them with surprising things, are lilting and engaging. Perhaps it's because I just heard her read from this and an earlier collection last week; perhaps her spoken voice lingers in my ear. But even on the page, there is a lightness and fundamental optimism, or hope, in the way this woman sees her wide-ranging world. I most love the poems in which she calls up her far-flung friends and family, calling on London, Accra, Chicago, Jersey City... and the ones in which she notices the small things in her yard, in her memory of home. This is very much a trans-cultural sensibility and vision.