Overview

Breaking the Silence is the first comprehensive collection of literature from Liberia since before the nation's independence. Patricia Jabbeh Wesley has gathered work from the 1800s to the present, including poets and emerging young writers exploring contemporary literary traditions with African and African diaspora poetry that transcends borders. In this collection, Liberia's founding settlers wrestle with their identity as African free slaves in the homeland from which their ancestors were captured, and writers of the early twentieth and twenty-first centuries find themselves navigating a landscape at odds with itself. From poets of Liberia's past to young writers of the present, the contributors to this volume celebrate the beauty of their nation while mourning the devastation of a long, bloody civil war.

Full Product Details

Author:   Patricia Jabbeh Wesley
Publisher:   University of Nebraska Press
Imprint:   University of Nebraska Press
ISBN:  

9781496233066

ISBN 10:   1496233069
Pages:   302
Publication Date:   01 March 2023
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction Part 1. Early Liberian Poetry, 1800–1959 Hilary Teage Land of the Mighty Dead Hymn Daniel Bashiel Warner “All Hail, Liberia Hail,” Liberian National Anthem Wishing to Be “21” Robert H. Gibson Heavenly Rest Implored Rise, Take Up Thy Bed and Walk Song of the First Emigrants to Cape Palmas Anonymous St Paul’s River Liberia Pierre The Emigrant’s Hymn Edwin James Barclay The Lone Star: A National Song To Pauline—a Flirt To Lygia To Jealous Lygia Human Greatness Afric’s Lament The Race-Soul The Ocean’s Roar Dawn Song of the Harmattan The Past Part 2. Liberian Poetry, 1960–1989 Rev. Father James David Kwee Baker O Maryland! Dear Maryland! Land of the Beautiful Cavalla Grand Ode to Cape Mount Divine Guidance Roland Tombekai Dempster Is This Africa Africa’s Plea The Lone Star Shines When You Die—a Philosophy of Life The Poet’s Ear Take the World Away, but Give Me Freedom Go On and Do, Let the People Talk To Man The Pepper Bird Is Singing Liberia in Verse and Song H. Carey Thomas A Sonnet—the Poet’s Soul Ask Me Why No Longer Yesterday Because You Told Me When You Sigh At Sunset Echoes of a Longing Heart The Tom-Toms Beat No More Bai T. Moore Ebony Dust Monrovia Market Women Africa in Retrospect The Legend of Shad Tubman A Wingless Bird My Africa The Bulldozer The Hallelujah Stuff Yana Boys The Strength of a Nation Ko Bomi hee m koa Ba nya m go koma Kona Khasu (James Roberts) Dear Patrice Lumumba Our Man on Broad Street Unnamed Thing Their Words—Deception To Time Our Enemy The Old Stream Part 3. Contemporary Liberian Poetry, 1990–Present Althea Romeo-Mark Who’s on Watch? Visiting Khufu Oya (Wind in Cape Town) A Different Kind of Pied Piper 2020 The Cat-Gods Have Fallen Patricia Jabbeh Wesley Praise Song for My Children November 12, 2015 What Took Us to War When Monrovia Rises I Want to Be the Woman Biography When the Wanderers Come Home We Departed Our Homelands and We Came An Elegy for the St. Peter’s Church Massacre They Want to Rise Up Pittsburgh Monrovia Women I’m Waiting Part 4. Emerging and Aspiring Liberian Poets Barth Akpah Harper Nedee? Oche Dike Ala (Grandma Has Gone) Jee-Won Mawein Esika Arkoi A Woman If My Mother’s Tale Watchen Johnson Babalola While Tomorrow Waits Divided We Stand Edwin Olu Bestman New Kru Town, Where I Come From Darkness, the Surname of a Poor Lover How to Write a Dirge for Liberia Edward K. Boateng Memories of Home Curing My Mother’s Wound Genealogy of the Fourteen Pieces of Liberia Maybe I’ll Go Home Tetee Alexandra Bonar He Stole a Piece of Me Chorlyn E. Chor Identity Sunny Eddie Crawford You Are Mine Words in Portrait Arthur Shedrick Davies Deepu: A Definition of Divinity Origins of the Poet Next Door This Is Poetry Maureen Jennifer Davies Free Me Essah Cozett Diaz Our Mother Is Gold When a Rolling Stone Leaves Pebbles Behind For Daughters Who May Never Be Mothers For Women Who Are Water in Fields of Rice From Coal Pots to Gas Stoves I Wasn’t Ready to Open My Eyes Mawata Dukuly The Brown Beauty Who Is a Leader? James Varney Dwalu The Oppressed I Am Nothing (Neutrality) Cynthia Senu Gailor Where Were You? Daniel W. Garteh Jr. Quarantine in Hope Cherbo Geeplay Africa Aloysius S. Harmon The Diary of an Orphan Pain as Metaphor West Point, Liberia Ruby M. Harmon Nah Fooh, Nah Fooh Grey Stone Blues Mother and Daughter Quita Harvey We Need to Pass It On Laurel Iloani One World, One People Patrice Juah The Ebola Ride An Afro-Madrileña Love Note McChen A. D. Kanneo Ebony Perfection Jeremy Teddy Karn The Making of Grief Elegy for a Friend Evelyn Kehleay-Miller My First Winter Kerry Adamah Kennedy I Live Where Billboards Are Broken Home Janetta Konah Water Birds My Grieving Mother Memorabilia Nvasekie Konneh The Life of a Poet My Father’s Last Prayer Lekpele M. Nyamalon Rock Your Jaws You Post Stockade Jackie Sayegh Say Nothing Eunice Sua Seyaker Sing to Me, Ade: On Reading “Praise Song for My Children” Lamelle Shaw Ashes of My Heart Mohamed Sheriff Nomad Child The First Heartbeat Joshua T. G. Smith Tragedies Prince U. D. Tardeh Let’s Be Cool Augustine F. Taylor Jr. Red Light Ayouba Toure Earth’s a Battlefield On Searching for Peace from Within The Women of Monrovia Are Citizens of Heaven Rebirth Kulah K. Washington The Home in Ruin Vermon Washington Peace If We Could Love Again Othello Weh Monrovia Vagrants Sit Down Monrovia Flood Korto Williams The Secrets of September Masnoh Wilson As If I Never Left Source Acknowledgments Contributors

Reviews

This groundbreaking anthology takes us on an epic journey through Liberian poetry, from the past to the present. It is a surprising and fascinating read. -Bernardine Evaristo, author of the Booker Prize-winning Girl, Woman, Other This compendium of Liberian poetry put together by the visionary writer, teacher, and survivor of the Civil War, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, is an inspiring achievement. Gathering and curating the first-ever anthology of Liberian poetry, Wesley has made literary history and immeasurably enriched the literature of the region and the continent. The collection opens with her thoughtful introduction to this immense endeavor and then introduces readers to a broad library of poems, ranging from hard-to-source early work from the 1800s to some of the newest writing emerging from the country, nurtured into being in generative workshops run by Wesley in Monrovia. Her combination of archaeological research and mentorship of younger writers means that Breaking the Silence will stand as the definitive source on Liberian poetry for years to come. -Gabeba Baderoon, author of The Dream in the Next Body

This groundbreaking anthology takes us on an epic journey through Liberian poetry, from the past to the present. It is a surprising and fascinating read. -Bernardine Evaristo, author of the Booker Prize-winning Girl, Woman, Other This compendium of Liberian poetry put together by the visionary writer, teacher, and survivor of the civil war, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, is an inspiring achievement. Gathering and curating the first-ever anthology of Liberian poetry, Wesley has made literary history and immeasurably enriched the literature of the region and the continent. The collection opens with her thoughtful introduction to this immense endeavor and then introduces readers to a broad library of poems, ranging from hard-to-source early work from the 1800s to some of the newest writing emerging from the country, nurtured into being in generative workshops run by Wesley in Monrovia. Her combination of archaeological research and mentorship of younger writers means that Breaking the Silence will stand as the definitive source on Liberian poetry for years to come. -Gabeba Baderoon, author of The Dream in the Next Body

Author Information

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley is a professor of English, creative writing, and African literature at Pennsylvania State University–Altoona. She immigrated to the United States with her husband and children in 1991, during the Liberian civil war. Wesley is the winner of the Levinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation and is the author of six collections of poetry, including Praise Song for My Children: New and Selected Poems, winner of the 2023 Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize; Becoming Ebony, a 2002 Crab Orchard Award winner; and When the Wanderers Come Home (Nebraska, 2016). She is a founder of Young Scholars of Liberia.

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