Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

FLYING      We arrived in the windy city thirty minutes ago, two hours delayed. No apologies. Many passengers are missing their connections, but I opted in for a sevem-hour layover to enjoy the midwestern feel, after all.   Never seen a substitute plane in the US until today, a generic plane, with no United Airlines …

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Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

I have always loved writing poetry and short stories. Even as a child, I wrote poetry about everything from inspiration to my father’s admiration. Poetry comes to me naturally because I think in imagery and metaphors, in symbols, and juxtaposed realities. To me, everything can inspire a good poem. I can take a small thing …

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Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

Mistake House Magazine: Let’s begin by talking about a poem in your book When the Wanderers Come Home (University of Nebraska Press 2017), “What Took Us to War.” This poem, like so much of your poetry, contemplates the trauma of Liberia’s civil war, which you and your young family fled during the first cease fire …

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Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

Dr. Patricia Jabbeh Wesley immigrated to the United States with her family during the 14-year Liberian civil war, a war that has shaped her writing as an African Diaspora woman writer in the United States. For more than two decades, Wesley’s poetry has given voice to the voiceless, the hundreds of thousands of Liberian war …

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