Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our

the Crab Orchard Series
in Poetry
Series Editor, Jon Tribble
“In ‘Requiem for Auntie,’ Patricia Jabbeh Wesley
writes, ‘the mysteries of this world are…in the
silence that the dead refuse to take along.’ Her
new book is a translation of that silence into the
vital song of poetry. Wesley epitomizes the poet
as compassionate witness, and with such poets the
answer to the question—Did this poem demand to
be written?—is always a resounding yes.”—Stuart
Dybek, author of The Coast of Chicago
Copublished with Crab Orchard Review
79 pages
ISBN 0-8093-2517-9, $14.95 paper
2002 Open Competition Award
Becoming Ebony
Poems by Patricia Jabbeh Wesley
“The poems of Patricia Jabbeh Wesley are
fearless, eye-opening, breathtaking, and
compassionate. She writes of a homeland
devastated by war and violence, of a
culture’s survival beneath the flames of
that war, and of the everyday courage
of people whose stories would be lost
if not for these poems. …These are
political poems in the best sense of the
word—wise, necessary, undeniable.”—
Allison Joseph, author of Imitation of Life
and Soul Train
Available at major retailers and independent bookstores, or from
southern illinois university press
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