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Living in Babylon:
Poems and Performances, including "What
Do You Believe In?" by Esther Iverem, Africa World Press, November
2005
Talk
about SeeingBlack Founder Esther Iverem's "Living in Babylon"
and Black poetry! Click here.
Esther Iverem's new collection of poems, Living in Babylon
(Africa World Press), is a wide-ranging meditation that proves the
adage that the personal is political, and the political is profoundly
personal. As an active member of DC Poets Against the War and a
veteran journalist, she is part of a new generation of writers actively
engaged in speaking truth to power in a new era of global empire.
 "Esther
Iverem lives where I live. If she's living in Babylon I'd better
listen to her. You too. I remember when this woman told us the
news in newspapers. Well, it's poetry this time. In this second
volume of poems, I think she asks the most important question
of the 21st century—which America Is America? Iverem teaches
one how to turn pain into power and power into poetry."
—E. Ethelbert Miller
 "In
these poems Esther Iverem summons Neruda, black-eyed peas, Harriet
Tubman's pistol—touchstones of resistance and hope. The
poems warn that yes, there are nooses everywhere, but they also
remind us of our strength, exhort us to believe that we have the
power of "Antonio Maceo, mounted on his horse, sword in hand."
With their beauty, their humor, their brave solemnity, the poems
are "love reparations," manifestoes for the new century.
What can we say but thank you?"
—Sarah Browning, Founder, D.C. Poets Against the
War
|  The
Living in Babylon Tour combines poetry performance
with discussion about culture and media in the age of information.
Click here
for the most up-to-date listing of tour dates and locations.
 Order
the book online from SeeingBlack.com Amazon Store
Book
a tour date in your area.
|
Praise for Iverem' first book of poems and photographs,
The Time: Portrait of a Journey Home, (Africa World Press).
"Esther Iverem!!! You have developed a very special sound!
Your poetry is distinctly "different." I'm sure you are
headed for a very special success. Hold on!"
— Gwendolyn Brooks
"Iverem is one of a growing cohort of young poets whose inaugural
volumes promise that 21st century African American literature will
be both brilliant and incendiary—in the tradition. ...There
is a fresh and refreshing sensibility at work in her poetry. ...With
such a heart, with such a voice as Esther Iverem's, we're bound
to win."
—Lorenzo Thomas, African American Review
"Exhuberant…Iverem's poems do more than just embrace
the political. Her book is a document which describes just how entwined
the personal and political are for African Americans in this country."
—Robyn Selman, New York Newsday
"Esther Iverem ... is one of the light-bearers, committed
to an aesthetic of innovation, justice, and struggle. Her words
bite, purr, snarl, scream, shout, spit, soar, sing and hit with
the skilled ferocity of a master martial artist. You don't quite
know what hit you."
—Fred Ho, Composer and Bandleader
"She does it so well—that blending of emotion and activism,
of profundity spoken softly, of rage funneled through reflection.
This book is a brilliant beginning, a rightful place of departure
for a young woman determined to mine her way through the forest
in order that we might see more clearly. We're going to hear more
from this writer in that quietly strong voice—forever brash,
forever thoughtful."
—Bridgett M. Davis, novelist and film director, New
York City
In the News
"Babylon
Baby" by By Rachel Beckman
Washington CityPaper
Dec. 9, 2005
About Iverem:
Esther Iverem is a journalist, author and poet. Her reviews regularly
appear on SeeingBlack.com, a web site she founded in 2001 for the
dissemination of reviews, news and commentary from a Black perspective.
She is a former staff writer for The Washington Post, New
York Newsday and The New York Times, and is a contributing
critic and essayist for BET.com and Pacifica Radio.
Her first book of poems and photographs, The Time: Portrait
of a Journey Home (Africa World Press, 1994), received positive
reviews, and she has been featured in Black Issues Book Review,
on MSNBC.com, and on the Tavis Smiley Show. She is a contributor
to numerous anthologies, including “Step into A World: A Global
Anthology Of the New Black Literature,” edited by Kevin Powell
and “The Garden Thrives: Twentieth Century African American
Poets,” edited by Clarence Major. Her poem, “What Do
You Believe In?” was broadcast internationally as part of
the October 2003 March on Washington on the National Mall.
She is a graduate of the University of Southern California and
Columbia University, and is the recipient of a National Arts Journalism
Fellowship and an artist’s fellowship from the D.C. Commission
on the Arts and Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Media Contact:
Chrissy Murray
cprmedia2@aol.com
— November 4, 2005
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