Lasana M. Sekou is the pen name of H. H. Lake who was born in Aruba, in 1959. Sekou was raised in his paternal homeland, half-French and half-Dutch St. Martin, and he writes impassioned performance poetry calling for independence. In that sense, he is in something of a time-warp, drawing on the great nationalistic voices of George Lamming and Kemau Brathwaite, and also the fluid, identity-building voice of Aime Cesaire. Sekou has been knighted by Queen Beatrix of Holland for his extraordinary contribution to St. Martin culture and heritage, and he enjoys great popularity in his home country.

He is the guiding light of the House of Nehesi Publishers, among many other contributions to his society. Sekou's poetry is translated into many languages and he has performed widely throughout the Caribbean, the U.S.A., South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. Sekou's work is studied in universities, performed by high school students, and has been published in important journals such as Callaloo and The Caribbean Writer. He has received many awards and honours and is the author of ten books of poetry, monologues, and short stories.

The Salt Reaper, Sekou's most recent offering, is made up of 18 poems from the decade of the nineties and about 40 new poems from the current decade. An informative introduction by Hollis 'Chalkdust' Liverpool and some intriguing photographic illustration are included in this text. They serve to cushion the provocative and intense voice that issues from these pages and lend perspective to the call for nationhood. In 'No Love Poems', Sekou writes:

Sekou's multi-creole vocals are subtle, but ever-present ('becausein') and his words insist on orality—they sing the nation off the page and into being. He has followed the example set by Brathwaite and writes with visual text that leaps off the page:

The 'Salt Pond' is a central image, evoking hard slave labour in the St. Martin heritage 'Through the briny ages'. In it was 'anchored your sweating ebon brow under a crown of thorns'. Sekou writes with the agonistic history of the colony at his fingertips and sings and evokes great sweeping rhythms to dislodge the weight and torment of that past. His poems are full of allusion to what has come from the past; therefore he calls on his listeners/readers to go forward to fetch the future and bring it cleanly to the present. It is a way of bringing a new nation into being. In 'The Blockade Next Time', he says:

Sekou writes with erotic power about the stages of development of his political vision. He doesn't pull punches. For example, in 'Freedom', he calls:

He writes with equal passion about the terrible scourge of drug addiction that prevents many a man from claiming his true heritage:

Instead of the demeaning emptiness of drug dealings, Sekou calls for proud identity to rise and claim its heritage. In the Darkman (dm) poems he makes this explicit:

The Salt Reaper – Poems from the Flats

By Lasana M. Sekou

GREAT BAY, St. Martin (November 2004)—The Salt Reaper – Poems from the flats, by the St. Martin poet/author Lasana M. Sekou, was launched here on November 6, 2004. This is the ninth book of verse from one of the Caribbean’s most dynamic poets. What is sure to add fire to some seasoned poetry is an introduction to the book by Dr. Hollis “Chalkdust” Liverpool, the 2004 Calypso King of Trinidad and Tobago.

In The Salt Reaper , writes Chalkdust, Sekou is “still a fresh mind in a fresh poetic garment, spilling out his vision for the birth of a new St. Martin, a new Haiti, a new Caribbean, indeed a new civilization.” The internationally acclaimed kaisonian is himself an author, music educator, and associate professor of history at the University of the Virgin Islands.

Sekou’s poems range in topics from the 1990 heavy equipment owners protest that blockaded the Caribbean island of St. Martin, to Dutch immigration, constitutional status searches by the remaining colonies in the Caribbean, Haitian solidarity, fellowship with Cuba, sons and fathers, the historical “stain” of St. Martin’s Great Salt Pond, crisis in Kigali, and war and torture in Iraq.

The signature piece of the book is “Cradle of the nation,” a poem that is “magisterial” said Dr. Carolyn Cooper, literature professor at University of the West Indies, Jamaica. Dr. Cooper flew to St. Martin to deliver the address at the book launch, attended by over 200 people at the Philipsburg Jubilee Library.

Sekou’s love poems this time around are fewer than usual. What is completely unusual is the impression that these sensual love poems are describing women in their 30s and 40s, as opposed to the ofttimes lusty poems of his earlier collections that were clearly romancing younger women. Chalkdust does the unusual here too by linking the love poems to an element of history and “identity.”

The Salt Reaper  introduction opens with Chalkdust pointing to the “nourishing intellectualism and stimulating thoughts conveyed by the unique style and dripping-with-knowledge lines of the poet.”

What might also interest St. Martiners and the poet’s generation in the Caribbean and beyond is how the master calypsonian links Sekou to the likes of his seniors George Lamming, Rene Depestre, Paulo Freire, Edouard Glissant, CLR James, and Frantz Fanon, said Jacqueline Sample, president of House of Nehesi, the book’s publisher.

(The Salt Reaper . House of Nehesi Publishers, 114 + xvi pp., US$15. Paperback,)