Becoming Ebony

Recapturing the celebratory voice of Africa in poems that are both contemporary and traditional, Liberian-born Patricia Jabbeh Wesley weaves lyrical storytelling with oral history and images of Africa and America, revealing powerful insights about the relationship between strength and tragedy. Rooted in myths that can be traced to the Grebo tradition, Becoming Ebony portrays Wesley’s childhood experiences of village talk and civil war, as well as her adult experiences of the pain of her mother’s death and the difficulties of rearing a family away from home in the United States. Turning on the African proverb of the wandering child and the metaphor of the ebony tree - beautiful in life and death - these poems delve into issues of human suffering and survival, chronicling what happens after the sap is gone.