The River Is Rising - Softcover

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1932870180 ISBN 13: 9781932870183

Publisher: Autumn House Press, 2007

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley is a survivor of the Liberian Civil War that ravaged the country from 1989-2003. She is the author of three books of poetry, Where the Road Turns,Becoming Ebony and Before the Palm Could Bloom: Poems of Africa. Her work has appeared in numerous American and international publications. Currently at work on her memoir of the Liberian Civil War, Patricia teaches English, Creative Writing, and African Literature at Penn State University, Altoona. She lives in the Pennsylvania with her family.

Review

...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

Edition details

• Publisher: Autumn House Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1932870180
• ISBN 13: 9781932870183
• Binding: Perfect Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 126