Books by Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

Before the Palm Could Bloom  /  Becoming Ebony

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Bio-Sketch

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, born in Tugbakeh (Maryland County, Liberia) and grew up in Monrovia, is the author of Before the Palm Could Bloom: Poems of Africa, which retells her experiences in the Liberian civil war. Her second book of poems is Becoming Ebony. 

She attended the prestigious College of West Africa (CWA), a United Methodist High School which was founded in 1839. Her college days were marked by Liberia’s political unrest in the late 1970s, which resulted in the country's first military coup in 1980. 

Prior to the Liberian civil war, Wesley was awarded a World Bank Fellowship to do graduate studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, where she obtained a Master of Science degree in English Education. After completion of her studies, she returned with her family to Liberia. 

She and her family became caught up in the Liberian civil war when rebels overran Monrovia in 1990. They were forced to flee their home in Congo Town, a suburb near Monrovia, and lived in the Charles Taylor held territory where they experienced the torture that classified Taylor's warfare. She and her family thereafter  immigrated to the United States in 1991, having lost possessions and family during the continuing Liberian civil war. 

She has taught English and Literature classes at the University of Liberia in Liberia, and at a few American universities and colleges. Her first book of poems, Before The Palm Could Bloom: Poems of Africa (New Issues Press, 1998) successfully captures some of her war experiences. Wesley writes poems of the Liberian civil war and of the devastation  it has wrought. And in poems of village life and customs, the city of Monrovia, the rites of childhood and adolescence, Wesley records for the reader a world that has been forever changed. Wesley's poems incorporate many African voices, and range in tone from sorrow and longing, to humor and ironic wit.

Her second book of poems, Becoming Ebony, (second place winner of the Crab Orchard Award Series 2nd book open competition) has just been released from Southern Illinois University Press. 

Four years ago she returned to school upon the publication of her first book of poems in 1998, and completed a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing in June 2002. Her work has appeared in The Cortland Review, Crab Orchard Review, Midday Moon, and New Orleans Review.

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Ph.D. / Assistant Professor of English / Penn State University / Altoona Campus / 3000 Ivyside Park / Altoona, PA 16601-3760 / Office: 125 Miscagna Family Center for Performing Arts /   (814)949-5501 / Fax:  (814)949-5368 / Patriciajabbehwesley.net / http://www.myliberianvoice.com/blog/  /  poetryforpeace

She lives with her husband, Mlen-Too, and their four (often) adorable children.
 

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Table

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Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf  (video)

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update 4 October 2008