Songs of a Jealous Wind
“Benjamin Kwakye emerges from this very impressive collection, Songs of a Jealous Wind, as the most versatile of African poets, the master of various poetic techniques. Whether working from traditional sources of inspiration like the praise poem or the dirge, or deploying, in a modernist way, taut, condensed, yet powerful imagery that must be unraveled to get at meaning, or using free verse or rhymes, he shows himself a complete master of the poetic art, and he has produced poems combining compactness with fluidity and fluency. His themes include the whole gamut of the African experience: the glorious heroes and heroines of the African past, the lusciousness of the African environment, the oppressiveness of imperialism, the corruption of contemporary life. He continues to reinforce his claim to being incontestably in the front rank of African writers.” – Professor Eustace Palmer, Georgia College & State University