Death Does not End at the Sea

Gbenga Adesina, a Nigerian poet and essayist, is the inaugural Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Global Black and Diasporic Poetry at the Furious Flower Poetry Center, James Madison University. He received his Masters in Fine Arts from New York University, where he was mentored by Yusef Komunyakaa. He is the cofounder and editor of A Long House, a journal of diasporic art, thought, and literature. He has won multiple fellowships, and his poems have appeared in the Paris Review, Harvard Review, Guernica, Narrative, Yale Review, The Best American Poetry, the New York Times Magazine, and elsewhere.

“Death Does Not End at the Sea is more than a great first book, it’s a mature reworking of contemporary elegy. Gbenga Adesina reconfigures the loss/ghost of his father into odes celebrating vulnerability and personality-as well as Fela Kuti in Versace and a globetrotting James Baldwin. The tender, scrutinizing spirit of Baldwin guides these beautiful meditations on the nature of love and grief. Death Does Not End at the Sea is more than a debut, it’s a revelation.”-Terrance A. Hayes author of Lighthead, winner of the National Book Award for Poetry “Gbenga Adesina’s Death Does Not End at the Sea is a requiem for kinship, familial bonds, tethered histories, and splintered branches that always remember their roots. Adesina bridges memory both personal and collective with the migratory movements of global Black life. What results is a poetry in witness and celebration, a tenderness and veneration, a welcome song in our dawn!”-Matthew Shenoda, author of Tahrir Suite: Poems and The Way of the Earth “Death Does Not End at the Sea is a collection from a poet who has matured in voice and craft. Every line quivers with a deft music. The layering of meaning, philosophy, hope, grief, rebirth, ethical questioning, and song is unsurpassed. A major talent and an important voice, Gbenga Adesina has earned every victory in this book, every accolade it will earn, and every moment of luminosity, of which there are many. In this breathtaking work we encounter a poet who carries this tradition with an easy grace. Beautiful.”-Chris Abani, author of Smoking the Bible

• GloryII Carried My Father Across The SeaThe People's History of 1998The WeddingSurrenderIn Search of James Baldwin in Paris (I-IV)Brief HistoryThe Lovers of ModenaComa: A SequenceEnvoy to the South of FranceIIDeath Does Not End at The Sea: A SequenceIIIIn Search of James Baldwin in Istanbul (I-III)All of the LightsCitizen116th StreetParadiseMan Radiating HappinessIn Search of James Baldwin in Senegal (I-II)VowsVanishingPraiseGorÉeEnvoy to the South of FranceElegy of HandsAcknowledgments