Smoked Pearl

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Smoked Pearl is Akinsola Olufemi Jeje's first full-length collection of poetry, a semi-autobiographical compilation of poems written between 2005 and 2008. The collection thus indirectly chronicles Jeje's arrival in Hong Kong and his subsequent observations of Hong Kong life, Chinese and world events (Canada, Iraq, Africa, the USA); and his musings on race, culture, everyday life and matters of the heart. By turns exuberant, pensive, angry and poignant, Smoked Pearl speaks from the heart of a black Westerner as he negotiates the complexities of "Asia's world city" and its unique place in Chinese history and culture. Akin Jeje sees Hong Kong as a place where the political intersects with the personal. In his poetry, he compellingly shows his consciousness that the territory itself creates its own daily poetry through the joined rhythms of its own existence and that of the emerging giant on whose lip it rests. The title "Smoked Pearl" alludes to Hong Kong's position at the mouth of China's Pearl River Delta. But it also calls to mind Hong Kong's common designation as, "the Pearl of the Orient", indicating that here we have a different view. Jeje brings to Hong Kong and the world events he engages with a unique perspective of outrage, fascination, and – ultimately – compassion. Smoked Pearl chronicles observations and experiences in Hong Kong, Canada and Africa. Born in the United States of Nigerian and Kenyan parents in the early 1970s, Akin Jeje continuously writes multicultural experience in verse. Raised in diverse locations around the world from Lagos, Nigeria; London, England; and London, Ontario; to Calgary, Alberta, Canada; and Petersham, Massachusetts, USA, Akin Jeje now lives and works in Hong Kong. Educated in Canada, he is the graduate of four universities: The University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada (BA Sociology 1994); The University of Calgary (BA English 1996); The University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario (MA 2001) and York University in Toronto (B. Ed. Primary/Junior, 2005). An active poet and spoken-word performer -- in Canada since the early 1990s, and in Hong Kong since 2006 -- Jeje's works have been published and featured in both Canada and Hong Kong.