BRANCHES OF THE TREE OF LIFE is the first comprehensive volume of poems by Abiodun Oyewole, many of them never before published. Oyewole’s poems are powerful, often political, always lyrical and profoundly moving. Over the course of his forty year career and his long affiliation with The Last Poets, Oyewole is one of several poets credited for liberating American poetry by creating open, vocal, spontaneous, energetic and uncensored vernacular verse that paved the way for spoken word and Hip Hop. Using the spiritual, the sacred and the mystical, Oyewole often turns to the tree as a symbol of change and growth. His poetry re-branches into different directions, becoming grandeur in its proportions, and more complexly diversified in its structure. BRANCHES OF THE TREE OF LIFE is a living testament to a stunning career that confirms Abiodun Oyewole’s place at the forefront of poetic achievement. Cover Art and Photo: Vagabond.
Contributors
Introduction by Betty J. Dopson
BETTY J. DOPSON is an administrator, organizer and cultural activist. Having worked at Sydenham Hospital, she received her bachelor’s degree in Communications Arts and Sciences from Queens College and became the Director of Public Relations at Harlem Hospital Center, where she served for fifteen years. During her tenure, she established “Harlem Hospital Babies Day,” published the hospital’s newspaper, Centerview, recorded oral histories from the medical staff for The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and produced and hosted the cable TV program “Your Health is Your Responsibility.” She went on to work as the director of SQPA, NY Beacon School, which offered classes such as GED Prep, computer training, ESL, and recreational programming. Dopson is the co-founder and co-chair of CEMOTAP, Committee to Elimi-nate Media Offensive to African People, a twenty-seven-year-old watch organization created to monitor and confront offensive electronic and print media. She is also a founding member and co-chair of the Board for the Education of People of African Ancestry; a member of the Women’s Fellowship of St. Albans Congregational Church; The Sisterhood; The Imani Group, and is a former board member of WBAI, a pro-gressive FM radio station in New York City. Dopson has written the popular book, Shared Secrets of Elder Sisters, which was mounted as a play by the Queens Black Spectrum Theater that she currently performs as a one-woman show.
Edited by Gabrielle David, including the Afterword
GABRIELLE DAVID is the publisher of 2Leaf Press, a Black/Brown female-led nonprofit press based in New York that promotes multicultural literature and literacy, of which she serves as executive director. She is also editor-in-chief of the award-winning quarterly phati’tude Literary Magazine. Her poetry and essays have appeared in the Paterson Literary Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, AIM Magazine, and the Huffington Post,and she is an editor of Hey Yo! Yo Soy! 40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry by Jesús Papoleto Meléndez (2012), The Branches of The Tree of Life (2014), What Does it Mean to be White in America? (2016), and is the author of the TRAILBLAZERS series (https://trailblazersblackwomen.org). https://gabrielledavid.com
Here's What People Are Saying
“Abiodun Oyewole is one of the most important voices of his generation and my own. He opens up his heart and allows us to be one of the branches of a tremendous tree he has planted inside this revolutionary language called poetry. A mentor, a critic, and an inspirational voice of truth, he is a poet that shares his life with the world, and I am forever grateful for being one of the flowers he helped bloom.” ~Jessica Care Moore, award-winning poet and publisher
“In BRANCHES FROM THE TREE OF LIFE, Abiodun Oyewole, best known for his lifelong membership in The Last Poets, takes a well-deserved solo turn. He informs us that he is equally the product of his mother (with her unconditional love and encouragement) and his father (with his emphasis on competence and personal responsibility). And indeed, Abiodun’s collected poems faithfully shift gears one after the other, from praise to revolutionary exhortation and back again. A gift from a venerated lion in winter, they’re meant to fortify and inspire us, to remind us to treasure our history and to do the work necessary to create the future of our fondest dreams. Like their creator, then, these poems are not unambitious, but they succeed.” ~Bill Adler, co-author of Def Jam: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label (2011)
“When we can’t escape the echo of our own suffering, it is our storytelling that saves us, and it’s Abiodun Oyewole’s voice in the shadow of our forgetting that beckons us out from the depths. While there are so many ways we can destroy each other, how do we lift someone up, how do we lend a hand and reach out to a spirit, an ancestor, a child in search of answers or arms or imagination? If prayer is a petition for presence, then Abiodun’s poems will always be in a heart, on a tongue, in our palms reaching to exist. These are words, placed as strategic as songs, laying for us the blueprint to being empowered and fearless.” ~Aja Monet, poet and lyricist
“I have been listening to Abiodun since middle school and have had the honor to grace many stages with him. He is truly a pioneer. He attacks topics with the ferocity of a lion and has the compassion of a grandfather. So much respect for him and his body of work. He will go in the archives for centuries to come.” ~Etan Thomas, poet, author and NBA champion
“BRANCHES OF THE TREE OF LIFE is a literary treasure. Abiodun Oyewole is a living legend who speaks truth to power and celebrates the life, struggles, triumphs, beauty, and realities of being African in America. He carries the baton of the traditional African oral historian and is the great grandfather of what became hip hop. His works are universal in that they speak to the hearts of human beings everywhere. His works capture the heart of lovers as well as the passion of the revolutionary. For the past five decades Brother Dune has challenged all of us to be better, to treat each other better, to treat ourselves better and to live life with purpose, joy and integrity. Kudos to this magnificent collection of one of the world’s foremost poetic giants.” ~Linda H. Humes storyteller and educator, African Studies Dept. John Jay College/CUNY Founder, Yaffa Cultural Arts Inc.
“I met Abiodun as a young poet in my twenties, but his voice has been a part of my life since I was a small girl. Shhh, I ‘borrowed’ The Last Poets albums from my mom when I left California for college. Imagine the shock of coming to New York and finding myself seated on Abiodun’s couch getting a creative healing at his Sunday Salon. Dune is a one-man poetic army, his word and that big, booming voice of his are his weapons, but that his heart and his love for poetry and people are the healing salve.” ~Toni Blackman, Artist/U.S. Hip Hop Ambassador
