Daphne's Lot (An
Epic) is an event of history, myth, and knowledge in the event of
war and the ongoing turbulence of being human. With the language of
hard truth lifted by singing Abani speaks what is impossible to speak.
His poetry makes a shine in the hellish bogs where it is rare to see
shine. Kindness is the measure of these poems. It's a beautiful and
tough poetry.
— Joy Harjo,
Mvskoke poet and musician Daphne's
Lot is an absolute tour de force! The title poem is an exceptionally
poignant novella in verse, celebrating the courage and determination
of the poet's mother while charting his family's difficult flight
out of Biafra to England. Masterfully conceived and often wrenching
in the harsh details of it vignettes, Daphne's Lot reminds us of
poetry's essential force-and constant triumph-in giving voice to
the most trying of human circumstances. Chris Abani's new collection
is a revelation and victory in every way.
— David St. John
Chris Abani's poems remind us of what happens when moral boundaries
are obliterated and the sacredness of life becomes a kind of cynical
joke. But these poems also remind us of the human capacity for compassion
and love in the face of unspeakable cruelty and fiendish conditions.
Chris Abani and his poems matter to all.
— Ronald Gottesman, Professor
Emeritus, University of Southern California and Editor of the Norton
Anthology of American Literature
The masterful wedding of the narrative and the lyric in these poems
(whose subject is the maturation of a sensibility, the coming-of-age
of a young Englishwoman - the power of her ties to family, husband
and her "adopted" country, Nigeria - as well as the illumination
of her own soul and that of the narrator's) fills the reader with
both sorrow and wonder. It is an instructive tale for our age -
its vision of the individual will and imagination resisting the
madness of politics and the destruction of war is singular and profound.
— Carol Muske Dukes |
