Publications by Abegunde

PRAISE FOR ABEGUNDE'S WORK:

Terrance Hayes

author of Muscular Music (1999 Tia Chucha - 1999 Whiting Writers' Award and the 2000 Kate

Tufts

Discovery Award) and Hip Logic (2002 Penguin - selected by Cornelius Eady for the 2001 National Poetry

Series)

says of

Wishful Thinking

: "In Wishful Thinking M. Eliza Hamilton Abegunde…explores what it means to

be female

and black, visible and invisible, seen and unseen in America. To call her work “cultural” or “socio-

political” speaks to

what separates her from other less courageous contemporary American poets, but it does

not go far enough to

capture the special magic and grace of these moving poems. Here one finds Audre Lorde’

s passion; one finds Lucille

Clifton’s nurture; one finds Sonia Sanchez’s wisdom— a whole tradition of black

women poets can be heard in M. Eliza

Hamilton Abegunde’s song and cry of hopefulness.”

Diane Cameron

US-Benin Artist in Residence and 2005 Kora Awards Nominee, says: "Abegunde is a

beautiful soul

in a delicate package with the power from God like a leopard..."

Glenda Bailey-Mershon

editor of Jane's Stories and author of

Sa-co-ni-ge

: "When she speaks, her

presentation is

simple, yet compelling, part reading, part exhortation, part evocation of the fundamental

relationship between memory

and heritage. Because we all know grief, we all know shame. Eliza's work

inspires her audience to connect with the

secrets and hidden treasures in their own individual histories. To

read Eliza's work is to know in one's heart and soul

the grief and terror of the enslaved and the terrible

alienation of the enslaver. And yet we are all so near to the bone

of truth we cut by reading or listening to her

work somehow enriched and relieved by the experience. Her work

enlarges the scope of what can be written

and understood about the establishment of African-American heritage in

America. I believe that she is the kind

of writer who comes along once a generation to teach others how to write

bravely and honestly about the past

in ways that will affect the future."

CURRENT PUBLICATIONS

Poetry Chapbooks

Contemporary Urban Prayer

Letter to Yemanja

(upcoming)

Wishful Thinking

(2003, Jane's Stories Press Foundation, 1-891476238)

Supplication

The Answer to Your Question

Wishful Thinking

Still Breathing

(1998, Chicago Spectrum Press, 1-886094-85-3)

Still Breathing

What Is Now Unanswerable

(1994, Warrior Poets Press)

Anthologies

Jane's Stories III: A Midwestern Women's Anthology

(co-editor with Glenda Bailey-Mershon, 2006, Jane's

Stories Press Foundation)

Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating

Cave Canem's

First Decade (2006, Univ. of Michigan Press, 0-472-

06924-1)

Beyond the Frontier: African-American Poetry for the 21st Century (2002, Black Classic Press, 1-57478-017-4)

Through a Child's Eyes (2001, Plain View Press, 1-892386-12-3)

Knowing Stones: Poems of Exotic Places (2000, John Gordon Burke Publisher, Inc., 0-934272-62-X)

Catch the Fire (1998, Riverhead Books, 1-57322-654-8)

I Feel A Little Jumpy Around You (1996, Simon & Schuster, 0-689-80518-7)

Writing Our Way Out of the Dark: An Anthology of Child Abuse Survivors (1995, Queen of Swords Press,

9638992-2-8)

Journals

Lorraine and James

(Volume 1 Issue 2 online)

Wicked Alice

(Summer 2004,online)

Margin Magazine

(2004 Feature, online)

Warpland (Volume 9, No. 1, 2003)

nocturnes 2

(re)view of the literary arts (Fall, 2002, 1525-3325)

Jane's Stories II

(2002, Wild Dove Studio and Press, Inc. 0-96-39894-3-X)

Cave Canem

Other

Egun Wole! A Family Workbook for Remembering Our Ancestors (2006)

Chain, Chain, Change: For Black Women in Abusive Relationship

(1994, Seal Press, 1-878067-60-5)