Them Gone

About Akua Lezli Hope

A third generation New Yorker, Akua Lezli Hope has won numerous fellowships including those from the New York Foundation for the Arts and The National Endowment for The Arts, a Ragdale U.S.-Africa Fellowship, and for the Hurston Wright writers program and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. Also a Cave Canem fellow, she holds a B.A. in psychology from Williams College, a M.B.A. in marketing from Columbia University, and a M.S.J. in broadcast journalism from Columbia University. Her first collection, Embouchure, Poems on Jazz and Other Musics, won the Writer’s Digest book award for poetry. She is published in numerous literary magazines including African American Review, Catalyst, Hambone, Obsidian II, Stone Canoe, and many others.

Praise for Them Gone

Them Gone is a homegoing of homegirl reminiscence, a family reunion in verse and sound that sings a personal and public history alive and into our hands. Akua Lezli Hope’s poems recount journeys from South Africa to Paris, Jamaica to New York and parts between, leading us on a Black woman’s story, seasoned with poignant observation and a wise-worn search for truth. Wade into the wave of these pages and emerge transported to new, glimmered shores of universal truth!
—Tyehimba Jess, author of Leadbelly and Olio

Akua Lezli Hope’s voice, with its refreshing mixture of depth, insight, and elegance, breathes life into memory, roots, tradition, and the immediacy of time and place. Nothing is more important in her glistening volume, Them Gone, than family, friends, everything Gallic and Gotham, the amber glow of creativity, and the bittersweet essence of loss and grief. Whether she writes of poets Ted Joans and Jayne Cortez, artists Bob Thompson and Elizabeth Catlett, tigress Eartha Kitt or firebrand Rosa Parks, she celebrates their lives, achievements, and impact on society. Sometimes humorous, often sober, her deepening vision can be intensely philosophical. There are few poets writing today whose work is at once personal and visionary. Yes, the wait is over. It’s a thrill to watch her perform her unique magic.
—Robert Fleming, author of Fever In The Blood and Proverbs for the People

Them Gone is certainly on target. “Dancing on Daddy’s Shoes” is a gem, as are many others. What a joy to watch poets emerge from a cloudy beginning to this sunshine. Thank you so very much for sharing the remembrance of love past and the joy of future youngsters. A wonderful read.
—Nikki Giovanni, author of I Am Loved and Chasing Utopia