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K-Moses Nagbe
Academician, novelist, poet and essayist, K-Moses Nagbe's forthcoming book, Nuggets of
the African Novel, with Notes on the Liberian Literary Heritage, promises to
be an important read about the development and trajectory of the African novel.
"Even so,” Nagbe asserts, “it will establish that Liberia may not have
contributed a monumental body of writing to African literature, but we have
produced a literature of critical value."
Among his works (available through authorhouse.com, amazon.com or
barnesandnoble.com):
Sun at Midnight (2003) A love triangle begins in rage. How will it
end?
Wings for the Next Day 2004)Two boys flee war and set out to find
meaning in their lives. Which paths do they choose? What do they find at each
end of the road?
A Scream in the Storm (2004) Liberians brace themselves for a
millennium experiment in political governance. How do they come by it?
In his essay published on the Coalition of Progressive Liberians in the
Americas website, K-Moses Nagbe, a Contemporary African Writer at Work,
Liberian linguist Ray Martin Toe observes:
Following a 14-year long internecine war which has sapped the energies of
many Liberians and at worst drained Liberian intellectuals of their creative and
imaginative powers, Nagbe remains a persistent voice – an ever determined voice
which has a creative urge and concern of social relevance . . . Nagbe’s
stories incorporate major preoccupations of the African novel: reactions to the
consequences of colonial domination and the imposition of alien culture,
concerns with the disruption of traditional society and the pressing need for
re-education and regeneration, among other themes. It is these contemporary
African themes that Nagbe brings to Liberian literature. Hence, with their
modern Liberian settings, his novels evoke the peculiarities of our national
existence in terms of the tensions, stresses and conflicts that are often
expressed in personal and social terms in contemporary Liberian society (Toe copla.org).
K. M. Nagbe takes off here with five humanistic poems of subtle power, in
language purified and distilled.
SOMEBODY
Our world can exude warmth
If everybody knows
That nobody has the right
To make anybody
Hurt somebody.
If somebody is hurt
Anybody is likely to step in
So that nobody goes free.
In the end, everybody flies in--
So true because everybody
Is anybody
Who seems nobody
But in fact is somebody.
-1996
THE DIFFERENCE
Those who know not of nights
Dark, deep and dreary
Treasure less the joy
That comes with a starry night
And a home, yellow bright
And inviting.
I know the difference
Because of you.
- 1997
SHEEP AND SHEPHERDS
Sheep and shepherds
Carry symbols so sacred
So revealing.
They tell us:
The weak and the strong
Need each other--
Unity is all the world needs
And war flees.
-2001
TROY
I am to warn and yet
Be sliced by agony
Seeing souls unaware of dawning doom
Leap and laugh.
I am Cassandra
Caught in the flames of frustration
Wailing without hope--
Then comes midnight
And Troy wades through blood.
-1991
MILK FOR ALL GOD'S CHILDREN
(For Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)
I saw an M
And an L
Then a K
And knowing he craved
To clothe the naked
And feed the hungry
I slipped an I
Between the M
And the K
There stood a miracle:
Some rock cracked open
Unleashing a fountain of MILK
For all of God's children!
Then I clapped my hands
And stamped my feet
Chanting high
The 'Symphony of Brotherhood'.
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