"Most Popular" for 37 Poems by Lasana Sekou at online Caribbean bookstore
37 Poems by Lasana M. Sekou is now among the "Most Popular" books at ClubCari.com, said Jacqueline Sample, president of House of Nehesi Publishers (HNP).
The online bookstore’s "Most Popular" homepage titles include noted classics A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul, In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming, and Black Skin, White Mask by Frantz Fanon.
"This is a new listing for 37 Poems, and it comes during Lasana’s 30th year as a St. Martin author," said Sample.
"It is also very good for the relatively young St. Martin literature and encouraging for the new generation of writers throughout the Caribbean to see any kind of long-term exposure." The book takes its name from the 37-square-mile size of St. Martin.
"We are curious about the new and unexpected hits for 37 Poems even though it was published over three years ago with limited promotion," said Sample.
The "unexpected" new web hits for 37 Poems range from a BIBR citing that "Each poem has drive and invites the reader to explore the subject at hand;" to Michael Ingham selecting its poem about Filipino immigrants in China for his book Hong Kong: A Cultural History (2007); to the enlarged cover of 37 Poems at a US prisoner’s blog earlier this year.
37 Poems has never been launched on the island but it is available at Van Dorp and Arnia’s bookstores, Jubilee Library, and at Amazon.com and spdbooks.org.
The slim volume did receive critical reviews in The Jamaica Gleaner and the Caribbean Review of Books soon after it was published here in 2005.
The current "Most Popular" titles at ClubCari.com also include the cook book What’s Cooking in Guyana; Rosa Guy’s New Guys Around the Block; The Shelter (Plays) by Caryl Phillips, the famed UK author of Kittitian descent; and Lynn Joseph’s The Color of My Words, a children’s book about 12-year-old Ana Rosa Hernandez from the Dominican Republic.