Poetry. African Diaspora Studies. Lasana M. Sekou's 37 POEMS was written in China while the St. Martin poet was a visiting fellow at Asia's first International Writers' Workshop (2004) in Hong Kong and Beijing. Coming from a 37-square-mile Caribbean island, Sekou has been steadily reaching readers in the Caribbean, the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia through his writing and performances. Readers who think they know his poetic style will be pleasantly surprised at his streamlined use of language in 37 POEMS, which makes the collection even more potent than Sekou's previous release, THE SALT REAPER, which predates 37 POEMS by just a few months. "Somewhere between the grace of haiku and the weight of the epic, Sekou has crafted his most elegant work to date. 37 POEMS is both love song and lament"-Drisana Deborah Jack, author of "The Rainy Season."

Author City: St. Martin NAN

Lasana M. Sekou is author of 13 books of poetry, monologues, and short stories. He is an advocate for the independence of St. Martin, which is a colony of the Netherlands and France. The St. Martin writer is considered one of the most prolific Caribbean poets of his generation. Reviewers have compared Sekou's poetry to the works of a range of poetic giants, from Aime Cesaire to Oswald Mtshali, from Kamau Brathwaite to Dylan Thomas, from e.e. cummings to Linton Kwesi Johnson. His titles--such as the critically acclaimed THE SALT REAPER: SELECTED POEMS FROM THE FLATS along with 37 POEMS, NATIVITY, BROTHERHOOD OF THE SPURS, and Love Songs Make You Cry--have been required reading at Caribbean, U.S. and Canadian universities. Sekou has set his poetry to music in THE SALT REAPER: SELECTED POEMS FROM THE FLATS, his first audio CD recording. The poetry of the award-winning author has been translated into Dutch, Spanish, French, German, Turkish, and Chinese. NATIVITY/NAVITITE/NATIVIDAD is Sekou's first trilingual book.