Description:
James Yékú's second collection lingers on a poetics of elsewhere, as seen through poems that evoke various memories.
Review Quotes:
"Whether portraying the smell of rain on dry earth or the tops of hills in the fall, we are in the presence of a poet able to see reality with a child's clarity and present it with a scholar's diction. The majority of Yékú's poems, however, are about arrivals and departures--including births and deaths--the self in exile, and life's elusive meaning. Occasionally celebratory but mostly elegiac, these poems are deeply existential in ways that make this reviewer think of Camus' 'Myth of Sisyphus.'" --H Nigel Thomas, author of The Voyage
"In A Phial of Passing Memories, James Yékú captures the significant moments of life with arresting images that shed light on the human experience, bringing a measure of balance and confidence to his engagement with travels, nature and memory-making. Highly descriptive, this collection entertains, takes the reader on several journeys, and leads one to deep thought. It is a worthy addition to the new African diasporic literature." --Tanure Ojaide, Frank Porter Graham Professor of Africana Studies, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte