BLOOD LUXURY
Poems

by Osayande Ewuare

“In the Black Arts Tradition of Amiri and Abiodun, Askia and Larry Neal, Sis. Sonia and Jayne Cortez, Ewuare Osayande comes forth singing out of Philly's grim promise. Fiery and explicit, focused and unsparing, with echoes of Langston, David Walker, and Haki. The living voices of Ancestors ring in his superlative invocations of Memory: Malcolm, Robeson, embrace Gwendolyn Brooks. Explosive and spirited in his metaphor...Long may his raw hipness, sweetened in love, raise us above these hellish cities, and point our people on the stony road to Liberation.”

-Askia M.Toure', poet, educator, activist, co-founder of Black Arts Movement

“In the Black Arts Tradition of Amiri and Abiodun, Askia and Larry Neal, Sis. Sonia and Jayne Cortez, Ewuare Osayande comes forth singing out of Philly's grim promise. Fiery and explicit, focused and unsparing, with echoes of Langston, David Walker, and Haki. The living voices of Ancestors ring in his superlative invocations of Memory: Malcolm, Robeson, embrace Gwendolyn Brooks. Explosive and spirited in his metaphor. Our revolutionary passion continues on in this Ogunian Maroon, our heir and "Jeremiah" to the Hip-Hop Nation. Long may his raw hipness, sweetened in love, raise us above these hellish cities, and point our people on the stony road to Liberation.”

-Askia M.Toure', poet, educator, activist, co-founder of Black Arts Movement

“Ewuare Osayande’s poetry offers an unflinching critique of racism, sexism, hypocrisy and patriarchy. But he doesn’t stop there. In the era of globalization, Osayande shakes us out of our historical amnesia and reminds us of a seemingly forgotten lesson, we can either be our brother and sisters’ keepers, or their similarly hued oppressors. He takes us from the U.S. to Indonesia, to Sierra Leone and Nigeria and back. From each location, Osayande provides a stinging assessment of the ravages of global capitalism. Osayande’s fresh voice is a clarion call for justice, and therefore, it’s a voice of hope.”

-Mary Dillard, Assistant Professor of African History, Sarah Lawrence College

“These are not just engaging poetry; they are important poems. And their orality is compelling. I have never read more relevant poems in one collection by a still young poet. These are poems we can live by and thereby "live more abundantly." The best of Ewuare Osayande's tell-it-like-it-tiz poems deserve to be as well known as the revolutionary poems of Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez and Haki Madhubuti.”

-Everett Hoagland, Broadside Press era poet and author of Here … New and Selected Poems

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
EWUARE OSAYANDE (www.osayande.org) is a poet, political activist and author of several books including Caught at the Crossroads Without a Map and Black Anti-Ballistic Missives: Resisting War/Resisting Racism. He is co-founder of P.O.W.E.R. (People Organized Working to Eradicate Racism) and creator of Project ONUS: Redefining Black Manhood.

CATEGORY
Poetry/AFRICAN AMERICAN