Reviews of Before the Palm Could Bloom: Poems of Africa
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"Wesley brings us frontline poetic reportage in Before the Palm Could Bloom, her first collection. Many of the voices in this book speak only here."

––Publishers Weekly Nov. 2, 1998

“This book is a tour-de-force testament to the responsibility of writer to witness. …She balances the horrors of the Liberian Civil War, from 1989 to 1996—child soldiers and atrocities, almost a quarter million dead, three quarter million refugees—against the pastoral legacy of Liberian Life.”

––Vince Gotera, North American Review