Smoked Pearl: Poems of Hong Kong and Beyond

Smoked Pearl is Akinsola Olufemi Jeje’s first full-length collection of poetry, a semi-autobiographical compilation of poems written between 2005 and 2008. The collection thus indirectly chronicles Jeje’s arrival in Hong Kong and his subsequent observations of Hong Kong life, Chinese and world events (Canada, Iraq, Africa, the USA); and his musings on race, culture, everyday life and matters of the heart. By turns exuberant, pensive, angry and poignant, Smoked Pearl speaks from the heart of a black Westerner as he negotiates the complexities of Asia’s world city and its unique place in Chinese history and culture. Akin Jeje sees Hong Kong as a place where the political intersects with the personal. In his poetry, he compellingly shows his consciousness that the territory itself creates its own daily poetry through the joined rhythms of its own existence and that of the emerging giant on whose lip it rests. The title Smoked Pearl alludes to Hong Kong’s position at the mouth of China’s Pearl River Delta. But it also calls to mind Hong Kong’s common designation as, the Pearl of the Orient , indicating that here we have a different view. Jeje brings to Hong Kong and the world events he engages with a unique perspective of outrage, fascination, and - ultimately - compassion.