SORROWLAND ORACLE

In this collection, Ayodele Nzinga continues her strive toward freedom or is she already free, a free black woman, free to fly her freedom wings across the sky, a sky filled with smoke and fire. She is the shaman woman working her word magic on you. If you enjoyed her last collection, The Horse Eaters, we know you will enjoy these spells from the undisputed Grand Diva of Oaktown!

– Marvin X, Black Bird Press News and Review

You can find Ayodele Nzinga somewhere on a page coaching ghosts. Moving the word down to the people like lightning carrying iron. Pain in her voice; lightning carrying all of this weight. For us. In an oppressive world that is burning in wealth, she is a one-woman renaissance; she is our personal Harlem. I am humbled to be a poet in her time; happy I get to tag along.

– Tongo Eisen-Martin, author of Heaven Is All Goodbyes, which received a 2018 American Book Award, a 2018 California Book Award, was named a 2018 National California Booksellers Association Poetry Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the 2018 Griffin International Poetry Prize

Water-laden and resolute these poems speak to the depth and reach of the Black Lives Matter movement; they chronicle the history of Black people who have been subjected to tremendous degradation but have still maintained their humanity and love which is the force that drives them to keep fighting against injustice. Ayodele's poems make you feel lashes but they also restore and guide you forward to dance with the drums.

– Opal Palmer Adisa, author of 20 books of poems, stories, novels and children's books; she is currently the University Director of The Institute for Gender and Development Studies at The University of the West Indies

Nzinga wields words like a sharp knife ... a quick turn peels away surfaces, allowing air and light into deep wounds. Personal and yet grand in scope, they sing when read aloud and longer in the mind, revealing more upon each reading.

– Charlie Levin, The One Truthiness

SorrowLand Oracle is for those who have eyes to see. “game” is my favorite for it reminds me of Dr. Nzinga, it reminds me of me, it reminds me of the brilliance of our ancestors and their dominating spirit to survive in spite of it all. game is resilience. game is black people, game is black culture and game is the essence of Nzinga's spiritual, political, cultural writing that can't stop, won't stop! “game” is Ayodele Nzinga's determination. It is beauty!

– Nefertitti Jackmon, Cultural Strategist

Some poetic letters are an ancestral and strategic life blueprint, a history lesson from middle earth, a Black gaze signaling a call to arms, or gently bequeathed ocean wisdom. Dr. Ayodele Nzinga’s new poetic offering SorrowLand Oracle encompasses all of these notions ... and more. At its core it is a prayer anthem. For the ages. Along its letters the reader will traverse through emotional trails of comfort and rage, the challenge of self awareness and responsibility, and the sorrow of a soul being excavated and placed upon a bright sacred table. SorrowLand Oracle is a search mission, and a revealing, of Black truth and life. It is the prophetic reckoning that must always precede a recompense of justice. Perhaps Dr. Nzinga says it best when she writes “We must remember. We must be the river.” I am certain that SorrowLand Oracle is something akin to a divine sea scroll. Penned by the fiery Black fingers of Dr. Nzinga at the behest of an ocean deep ancient Black soul, a caretaker of all given understanding and truths.

– Regina Evans, abolitionist, winner of the Jefferson Award

Ayodele Nzinga is a force of nature. The poems of SorrowLand Oracle are philosophical sermons of fire, works designed to breathe in life and shut down evil. These are hot prayers, bold and demonstrative, to be broadcast over the spilled blood of history. Be careful with these poems. By reading them, something may get conjured.

– James Cagney, author of Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory, winner of the 2019 Josephine Miles Pen Oakland award

Ayodele's words stir souls. The poems she's given us here dig into the grit and gristle of life while casting a quality of light that allows readers to see and understand their—our—humanity. With this book, she shows, and proves, why we call her Wordslanger.

– Lisa D. Gray, Our Voices Our Stories