ALTOONA, Pa. — Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, professor of English at Penn State Altoona, has just published a compilation of all of her collections of poetry. “Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Collected Poems, 1998 to 2020,” published by the University of Nebraska Press, is a 510-page volume of poetry and a glossary of Grebo language terms and words.
Included in the book are “Before the Palm Could Bloom: Poems of Africa” (New Issues Press,1998), “Becoming Ebony” (SIU Press, 2003), “The River is Rising” (Autumn Press, 2008 & Press 53, 2023), “Where the Road Turns” (Autumn Press, 2010), “When the Wanderers Come Home” (University of Nebraska Press, 2016) and “Praise Song for My Children: New and Selected Poems” (Autumn Press, 2020).
In her introduction to the volume, Penn State professor and poet Gabeba Baderoon said, “In conversation with Africa and her new homeland of America, Wesley’s craft is imbued with Grebo oral tradition, bringing her language alive as she makes the reader cry out in anger or laughter. On one page you may find reason to mourn the brutality of war, and on the next, a reason to laugh about the beauty of family or at the small wonders of everyday life. Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, the first major poet out of Africa’s oldest republic since the nation’s founding and remains one of the most important poets from Africa.”
Prior to the book’s July release, Publishers Weekly named it as a top 10 book of poetry coming out in 2026. The book was officially released in late July during Wesley’s visit to Liberia, researching for future publication, working to help young aspiring Liberian poets improve their writing. She is scheduled to launch the book in two major forthcoming readings in Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa.
In an early review of “Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Collected Poems, 1998 to 2020,” Foreword Review names the book among its Editor’s Picks, and a reviewer describes the book as, “Shaped by the uncivil challenges of a country (Liberia) at war with itself, and a body (cancer) at war with itself, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley feels an urgent responsibility to speak for her native country’s Grebo women and, in doing so, share their power and wisdom through sublime lines of poetry.”