by Susan Cook-Jahme

[self-published]

ISBN-0-620-32202-0 

From beginning to end, this is one of the most inspiring and refreshing books of poetry I've read in a long time. The poetry is divided into three section: Dawning; Twilight; and Solitude.

 It begins with 

“A Wistful Ache for Africa” :

 Wistful ache of the love

For the tawny plains

Surrounding highlands

That thrust up,

Touching the skies

Under hot sun clad days.

 Susan next takes you through the beauty of Africa with her works: Victoria Falls; Whispering Cape Wind; African Night; Mother Nature’s Loom; African Spirit Drums; Night Noises of the Veld; and Sunrise on Cool Sands.

 She gives you an intimate look into her life with her works: For Michelle; Makiwa’s All Look the Same; Jaunty Jim; The Farmer’s Children; The Old Colonial Bed; Solitude of the Bush Camp; and We Once Had A Farm In Africa.

 Her bold strokes of pen about the worst of Africa ring loudly and makes your heart ache in the works: Fist of War; In the Camps: Poacher’s Message; and Victim of the African Regime.

 And, Susan brings you back to the beauty and the hope she has for her land with her works: Domain of My Memories; Gandhi Told Me; Skies Over Lake Malawi; and her inclusion of

A Bushman’s Song

              “The day we die a soft breeze shall blow

& wipe out our footprints in the sand.

When the Wind grows silent,

Who will tell the timelessness…?

That once we walked this way

…In the Dawn of Time”

 Each of her works brings alive what Africa means to her from her verses to her artwork. Each pages gives you an insight to her dedication to her homeland, the trials and tribulations of the political growing pains of Africa, it’s richness and it’s poverty. This is really a book to keep and reread for it’s beauty and sensitivity.

 Reviewers Footnote: For the past twenty years, Susan and her husband have been passionately committed to animal wildlife conservation. This has resulted in being actively involved with the “Save The Rhino Conservation”, working on the Black Rhino Relocation Project that was carried out in the Zambezi Valley. As artists, they have often donated paintings and graphics to fund-raising auctions to benefit wildlife conservation projects. One such exhibition staged in the Harare Sheraton for the “Zimbabwe Wild Life Organisation,” resulted in donating the proceeds from eighty of their artworks to the Cecil Kop Nature Reserve in Eastern Zimbabwe. The funds went towards purchasing breeding stock and starting a wild life conservation educational school for local children.

 Reviewer: Elizabeth Lucas-Taylor, author/poet

http://www.authorsden.com/elizabethlucastaylor

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