Howard A. Fergusâ??s Love Labor Liberation in Lasana Sekou was blogged on Wednesday by US author Mark Nowak as, "A tremendous introduction to Sekouâ??s writings." In the online journal Harriet, Nowak writes that, "In the tradition of writings Iâ??ve been focusing upon in my blog entries for Harriet, Sekouâ??s writings intertwine the lyric, labor, and political liberation in dynamic, aesthetically innovative, and transnational ways." www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2008/07/labor_love.html. Nowak reviews Dr. Fergusâ??s take on Sekouâ??s "national agenda" for St. Martin, independence, "contemporary life," Caribbeanization, and salt in the islandâ??s history.Nowak is apparently no stranger to the writings of the St. Martin author.
He cites the "The Blockade Next Time" from The Salt Reaper and "points to the USAmerican colonial project in the Caribbean (& in Iraq, & in Afghanistan, & inâ?¦)" by highlighting Sekouâ??s poem "râ??ass remnants." "Reading Howard A. Fergusâ??s book reminded me not only of the deep intermingling of love, labor, and liberation in the books of Lasana Sekou that Iâ??ve been reading for much of the past decade," states Nowak, "it also reminded me of what feels (often) like a paucity of global political and economic knowledge and engagement by poets and their poetry here in the United States." Titles by Drisana Jack, Gracita Arrindell and Amiri Baraka also got a mention in the blog for the work being done in the Caribbean by House of Nehesi Publishers (HNP).Nowak is himself a hardnosed cultural critic, who is as comfortable blogging Harriet, founding the critical literary journal XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics or "facilitating â??poetry dialoguesâ?? between Ford autoworkers at plants in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Port Elizabeth and Pretoria, South Africa."Harriet is an online journal of the Poetry Foundation, one of the largest literary foundations in the world and publisher of Poetry magazine, founded in the USA in 1912 â?? and committed to the independence of literature and "a vigorous presence for poetry in (US) culture." www.poetryfoundation.org/foundation/about.html Love Labor Liberation in Lasana Sekou and other HNP books are available in St. Martin as Van Dorp, Arniaâ??s and other bookstores and at www.Amazon.com and www.spdbooks.org.