{"product_id":"an-african-elegy-isbn-9781635423105","title":"An African Elegy","description":"\u003cb\u003eThis moving poetry collection from the Booker Prize–winning author finds strength and hope while reflecting on the complex issues that have burdened Africa.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFirst published in 1992, Ben Okri’s remarkable debut collection features poems that are now considered classics and taught in schools and universities worldwide. Here he plays with the mystique of the African continent, countering simplistic narratives of suffering that have been imposed on it with vibrant, nuanced portraits of the traditions and resilience of African peoples. An invaluable window onto Okri’s experiences as a Nigerian immigrant to the United Kingdom and as a writer discovering his calling, these poems also speak to universal truths about love, injustice, and the search for meaning.“Dreams are the currency of Okri’s writing, particularly in this first book of poems…Okri’s dreams are made on the stuff of Africa’s colossal economic and political problems, and reading the poems is to experience a constant succession of metaphors of resolution in both senses of the word. Virtually every poem contains an exhortation to climb out of the African miasma, and virtually every poem harvests the dream of itself with an upbeat restorative ending.” —\u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eBen Okri \u003c\/b\u003eis a playwright, poet, novelist, essayist, short-story writer, anthologist, and aphorist. He has also written film scripts. His works have won numerous national and international prizes, including the Booker Prize for Fiction. His books include the eco-fable \u003ci\u003eEvery Leaf a Hallelujah\u003c\/i\u003e, the play \u003ci\u003eChanging Destiny\u003c\/i\u003e, the genre-bending climate fiction \u003ci\u003eTiger Work\u003c\/i\u003e, the poetry collections \u003ci\u003eA Fire in My Head \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Mental Fight\u003c\/i\u003e, and the novels \u003ci\u003eAstonishing the Gods\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Last Gift of the Master Artists\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eDangerous Love\u003c\/i\u003e. In 2023 he received a knighthood for services to literature.\u003cb\u003eIntroduction\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003ePoetry emerges from a unique way of looking at life, a unique way of feeling, within the matrix of language. The great questions of life are poetic questions.\u003cbr\u003e “If an apple falls, does the moon fall too?” asked Isaac Newton. This question gave rise to the science of gravity and the invention of quantum physics.\u003cbr\u003e The poems in my first collection were gathered over a period of a decade or more. I had just accomplished a transition from science to writing, from physics to poetry. Early on I saw poetry sublimated in the great scientific equations. Poetry for me then was as much about observation as capturing feelings that were roaming around in the mingled universe of those years. These poems are a fisherman’s net of the political, the romantic, the metaphysical, and something of history as it is lived.\u003cbr\u003e No poet writes their poetry alone. Not when there is suffering all around. The pen is moved by flowers and by pain, what Virgil called the tears of things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are many kinds of poems in this book: love poems, reflections about life, poems about injustice. Writing for me is intrinsically poetic. And poetry is as much about what you find as what you make.\u003cbr\u003e I have found poetry in many unlikely places.\u003cbr\u003e For many, poetry is a vocation; for others, a rigorous daily craft. For me it is a destiny.\u003cbr\u003e The elegies of Africans can be as full of lamentation as of joy, as full of grief as of spiritual mysteries.\u003cbr\u003e They embrace the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThey Say\u003c\/b\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey say \u003cbr\u003eLove grows\u003cbr\u003e When the fear of death \u003cbr\u003eLooms.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e They say \u003cbr\u003eCourage looms \u003cbr\u003eWhen the fear\u003cbr\u003e Of never loving again \u003cbr\u003eDisappears\u003cbr\u003e In the smell of the enemy \u003cbr\u003eWho crushes us so much \u003cbr\u003eWe can only fight.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Love and courage grow together \u003cbr\u003eWhen the flesh is rawest\u003cbr\u003e And the spirit charged\u003cbr\u003e And distorted within the nightmare \u003cbr\u003eWe see the possibility\u003cbr\u003e Of a future.","brand":"Other Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304822395109,"sku":"NP9781635423105","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781635423105.jpg?v=1767721479","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/an-african-elegy-isbn-9781635423105","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}