Named a Notable African Book of 2023 by  Brittle Paper Breaking the Silence is the first comprehensive collection of literature from Liberia since before the nation’s independence. Patricia Jabbeh Wesley has gathered work from the 1800s to the present, including poets and emerging young writers exploring contemporary literary traditions with African and African diaspora poetry that transcends borders. In this collection, Liberia’s founding settlers wrestle with their identity as African free slaves in the homeland from which their ancestors were captured, and writers of the early twentieth and twenty-first centuries find themselves navigating a landscape at odds with itself. From poets of Liberia’s past to young writers of the present, the contributors to this volume celebrate the beauty of their nation while mourning the devastation of a long, bloody civil war. “This groundbreaking anthology takes us on an epic journey through Liberian poetry, from the past to the present. It is a surprising and fascinating read.”—Bernardine Evaristo, author of the Booker Prize–winning Girl, Woman, Other “This compendium of Liberian poetry put together by the visionary writer, teacher, and survivor of the civil war, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, is an inspiring achievement. Gathering and curating the first-ever anthology of Liberian poetry, Wesley has made literary history and immeasurably enriched the literature of the region and the continent. The collection opens with her thoughtful introduction to this immense endeavor and then introduces readers to a broad library of poems, ranging from hard-to-source early work from the 1800s to some of the newest writing emerging from the country, nurtured into being in generative workshops run by Wesley in Monrovia. Her combination of archaeological research and mentorship of younger writers means that Breaking the Silence will stand as the definitive source on Liberian poetry for years to come.”—Gabeba Baderoon, author of The Dream in the Next Body Patricia Jabbeh Wesley is a professor of English, creative writing, and African literature at Pennsylvania State University–Altoona. She immigrated to the United States with her husband and children in 1991, during the Liberian civil war. Wesley is the winner of the Levinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation and is the author of six collections of poetry, including Praise Song for My Children: New and Selected Poems , winner of the 2023 Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize;  Becoming Ebony , a 2002 Crab Orchard Award winner; and When the Wanderers Come Home (Nebraska, 2016). She is a founder of Young Scholars of Liberia. Land of the Mighty Dead Hilary Teage Land of the mighty dead, here, Science once displayed, dart, her charms. Here, awful Pharaohs swayed great nations who obeyed. Here, distant monarchs laid their vanquished arms. They hold us in survey. They cheer us on our way. They loud proclaim from Pyramidal hall, from Carnac’s sculptured wall, from Thebes they loudly call, retake your fame! All hail Liberia, hail! Arise and now prevail o’er all thy foes. In truth and righteousness, in all the arts of peace advance, and still increase though hosts oppose. At the loud call, we rise and press towards the prize in glory’s race: All redolent of fame, the land to which we came. We’ll breathe the inspiring flame and onward press. Here liberty shall dwell. Here justice shall prevail. Religion here. To this fair virtue’s dome, meek innocence may come, and find a peaceful home and know no fear. Oppression’s cursed yoke, by freeman shall be broke, in dust be laid, the soul erect and free. Here evermore shall be to none we’ll bend the knee, but nature’s God. Proud science here shall rear her monuments, to bear with deathless tongue. By nations yet unborn her glories shall be known, and art her tribute join, the praise prolong. Commerce shall lift her head to suspicious gales shall spread expanded wing. From India’s spicy land, from Europe’s rock-bound strand, from Peru’s golden sand her tribute brings. Oh Lord we look to Thee. To Thee, for help, we flee. Lord, hear our prayer: in righteousness, arise, scatter our enemies, their hellish plots surprise and drive them far. Oh, happy people they who Israel’s God obey, where Lord is God: They shall be blest indeed, from anxious cares be freed. And for them is decreed a large reward. Liberia Herald , December 23, 1843