Animashaun, Abayomi: Seahorses

Black Lawrence Press, paperback Publication Date: August 15, 2020 "Abayomi Animashaun writes poignantly about the bittersweet experience of immigrants and refugees, the Others in the 'new paradise' that is America. For many, this land of opportunity has become a land of hostility, where survival means wearing a 'demure smile [that] // Signals nothing / Of the old city within.' But sometimes even this mask cannot guarantee inclusion or security. Fortified by insight and imagination, the poems in SEAHORSES mine those moments of injustice in order to find clarity about the troubling time we live in."—Rigoberto González "The poems in SEAHORSES are honed as axe blades, and they deliver a witnessing blow, telling of detainment camps, exile, loss, and a silence 'worn / As coat and / Top hat. // Sorrow tucked / In the left / Breast pocket.' Animashaun's speakers are fluid, at times reprehensible, at other times eliciting deep compassion, testifying to the life of the 'sole / Black immigrant /