Prayers to Survive Wars that Last

Book excerpt: “In this meditative and quietly lyrical approach, Chielozona Eze marks himself in this new African poetics not as a voice of easy protest, not as the voice of a bombast and rhetorical turn, but as the voice of an African poet in the twenty-first century trying to make sense of all the hunger, anger, war, loss, and desecration that has haunted his life and the lives of many Africans but remains always poised on that tender grace, that ease of dance, that transubstantiation that works an alchemy that is not about the outcome but always about the struggle, the engagement, and the terms thereof.” Chris Abani, Board of Trustee Professor of English, Northwestern University “This collection is a fitting memorial to a war still unatoned for and its accompanying sense of bereavement and lack of closure. In tune with a pervasive sense of loss and quiet recollection, the poems are meditative, packing a punch in their ambling profundity; Chielozona Eze does not blame; he speaks of introspection and love.” Amatoritsero Ede, Publisher & Managing Editor, Maple Tree Literary Supplement