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Books by Lasana M. Sekou
37 Poems /
Brotherhood of the Spurs /
Big Up St. Martin /
Born Here /
Love Songs Make You Cry
Mothernation: Poems from 1984 to 1987 /
National Symbols of St. Martin /
Quimbé: Poetics of Sound
The Salt Reaper: Poems from the Flats
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37
Poems
newest book by Lasana M. Sekou
GREAT
BAY, St. Martin (August 24, 2005)—According to Indian
novelist and scholar Tabish Khair,
37
Poems by Lasana M. Sekou
“is significant, vigorous and radical.”
The newest book by the St. Martin, Caribbean
poet range in topics and graphic imagery from the homeless in
glittering Hong Kong to young people in school or boys on the
block seeking to “belong” in green Middle Region. The poems
were written while Sekou was an International Writers Workshop
visiting fellow in China late last year.
From contemporary love poems to contempt for
unjust wars, the 37 poems are “life-affirming in an age when
jaded cynicism often passes for wisdom,” writes Khair in his
introduction to the slim volume.
Among what are for Sekou seamless
“nation,” regional and international topics and themes, he
slips in another darkman poem, “dm5,” the latest slingshot
from the insurgency-brooding series that began in The Salt
Reaper (2004).
In the poem “homework” he challenges
“the manner of the talk … that we come to in habit” about
the broken Black family. He is not convinced. He heralds why.
Recently, he reiterated the avenues to success as “a compound
of constant working solutions: love, labor, liberation.”
“Somewhere between the grace of haiku and
the weight of the epic, Sekou has crafted his most elegant work
to date,” states the poet/artist Drisana Debbie Jack about 37
Poems. So Sekou again does more than champions the cause of
“the darkman” and defend “the dark mane” of his “brothers
… locks in the cross hairs.”
But with the current term of terrorism
victimizing the innocent as much as being used, in Sekou’s
eyes, to intimidate legitimate freedom fighters, he “will not
wince.”
Why does the poet not believe in what is to
him the new imperial hype of, “who is not with us is our
enemy?” “history knows,” he counters in a set of four
“nation suite” poems. In that mini-series of verse we might
get an idea of why the book is called 37.
Some of these poems are uncommonly playful
for Sekou and some are as profound as an “eyeball stare.”
Jack’s comment on the book concludes:
“These are the poems we should read to our children, lullabies
for this new/old world.
“Each verse reaches across topographical,
cultural, and emotional divides and reveals that the heart is
home.” Jack is a lecturer at New Jersey City University.
For you lovers of poetry for poetry sake,
don’t miss the wonderfully sad but sultry true “city of
poetry,” where “he and she and sheet reach in the deep soak/
a wanton geography of sea.”
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Photo caption: The book cover of
37
Poems , capturing contemporary and old symbolism during
recital in Beijing, China. (Saltwater photo)
posted 18 September 2005 |
