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Where the Road Turns

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Review by Ann Bellinger Hammon:

Gathering the bones of the dead is a common tradition throughout world history and across cultures. Patricia Jabbeh Wesley has been gathering the bones of her family, the people of Liberia, through four volumes of poetry. Her sorrow for her war-torn homeland has spilled from her pen as if she had opened a vein and let her blood flow freely.She's trying to tell the stories of a people ruined by brutal civil war, and what remains are scattered bones.

The first three books, Before the Palm Could Bloom, Becoming Ebony, and The River Is Rising, are almost a parallel to the ugliness Liberia lived with for over fourteen years: stories almost screaming for mercy, stark and unyielding. Ms. Wesley does the seemingly impossible in finding a way to allow those whose voices are stilled or too quiet for Western ears to hear tell what has happened to their lives. War is hell, and I feel the flames licking at me as I read the cries of humans trying to remain human in the middle of one of the most terrible civil wars in modern times.

Where the Road Turns shifts focus. The blood-letting seems to have slowed, and though the pain of living with incredible loss both here and in Liberia remains evident, she has turned toward a search for grace and healing. The first three books held memories wonderful and life-giving, along with a recent past almost too much to bear. The sequence of stories here hold muted sadness, quieter sorrow, and lean toward hope. To read these four books is to understand assimilation, maturity, acceptance.

Ms. Wesley writes about more than her homeland. Her verses about the connections between men and women have a poignancy that even the inevitable disconnection can not equal. A song/poem for Barak Obama on his election made my heart dance. I loved seeing New Orleans, my father's home, through non-native eyes. The vagaries of aging are too familiar, as are the inevitabilities of change, and learning to let go of things, places, and people.

I grew up in a Liberia much earlier than the events written about in these books, even though the memories are ones i can relate to. The familiarity of her words brings tears to my eyes of joy and sorrow. I am thankful for the skill and passion of Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, and grateful beyond measure that she seeks to gather the bones of her people, and help heal her Motherland.

"Where the Road Turns" is one of my favorite books of poems by Patricia Jabbeh Wesley. The author seems to presents her ideas in a uniquely universal manner. She manages to captivate my attention and transports it internationally by addressing different cultural issues in a rather poetic fashion. Although she is a woman of color, she addresses contemporary issues affecting all races and every strata of life in this book. Her poetic style is unique as it is a blend of African languages and ideas that present the reader with a new understanding of the world through the lens of an African woman. It is a wonderful poetic work and I highly recommend you get a copy.

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley's Where the Road Turns is "chicken soup for your soul." You come away from the collection with a spirit of steel. Once you get on her road of words, you are mesmerised by the stories she weaves. The reader, like a child sitting under the moonlight in an African village, becomes spell-bound by them. Some poems reveal the brutal reality of war, others teach us about Grebo culture and the role of the dead in the life of the living. She shares life-lessons and teaches us to laugh at our misery. The wisdom, she has earned during her perilous journey to safety from Liberia to the USA, is revealed in most of her poems. At the end of the book, she returns you to your world, wishes you good night and leaves you with her blessings. Long poems are best suited to this poet/story teller. One feels cheated by her shorter poems. They are concise but their messages are however equally strong and valuable.

Where the Road Turns makes it unnecessary for Patricia Jabbeh Wesley to keep telling us that she is a voice that will be heard. The poems in this book cry out in rage and shout, nearly demand to be read out loud. Her beautiful rolling cadence causes the poems to read themselves aloud as they make us part of Liberian turmoil that robbed her of family and friends and of the inevitable passing of time. There is nothing fragile about the power of these poems, and they dramatically show that there is much that passing of time cannot heal. Wesley is a lioness in her anger, and she is so able to control that anger that it does not slide into bitterness. Her willingness to be vulnerable is powerful in itself.
"Waiting" seems the perfect explanation of cultural difference related to how time is experienced as it points out the American obsession with being fractured into seconds.
"The Blessing" that Wesley has chosen to close the book is the perfect benediction. Steeped in realism, it does bless without any of the romanticism that could come with such a title. I found so much life and joy in this book though it is steeped in death and grief as well.

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley's latest collection of poetry, Where the Road Turns, takes the reader from life in war-torn Liberia to a new life in America. Through her stunningly rhythmic language and personal tone, the reader is able to experience the pain of not only being a war-survivor but a woman and mother. I would highly recommend this collection of poetry not only for its historical and cultural content, but also for the superb quality of the poetry.