2000 Blacks - (Pitt Poetry) by Ajibola Tolase (Paperback)

About the Book

Winner of the 2024 Cave Canem Poetry Prize

Book Synopsis

Winner, 2024 Cave Canem Poetry Prize Gold Medal, 2024 Florida Book Awards in Poetry Longlist, 2024 Julie Suk Award

2000 Blacks probes the complexity of economic and politically motivated migration from Africa, which has been referred to as "African Brain Drain." In the first sequence of poems, Ajibola Tolase explores Africa's history and encounters with the Western world, providing poetic insight into the economic instability precipitated by the transatlantic slave trade and exploitation of mineral resources. Moving inward, the second sequence plumbs the poet's complex relationship with his father, connecting his emotional and then physical absence with the consequences of community disintegration.

Review Quotes

This searing collection captures the elusiveness of home.-- "Publishers Weekly"

The collection's gravitas lies both in its adherence to conventional narratives of enslavement and in the nuanced renegotiation of contemporary migration, rendered with a linguistic deftness that elevates the discourse surrounding diasporic experiences. The poems add tenderness without compromising chaos, expanding the canon of migration literature, each verse a node in complex diasporic consciousness.-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"

Masterfully crafted.-- "Poetry Foundation"

Sharing both history and spirit across the Black diaspora, how our cultures connect has never been more clearly rendered than in Ajibola Tolase's 2000 Blacks, which sings of life and death throughout the expanse of the world. If there's an incantation, some language binding us together in the experience of how we manage to survive over time, Tolase offers it here. Whether his poems report the loss of friends and family or celebrate the music of a tragic hero like Fela Kuti, whose music lives on, Tolase ultimately harmonizes all the culture humming within our humanity. In these poems, he rewrites 'the books of our masters' while 'working on a dance.' 2000 Blacks is a celebration not only of survival but of a creation of life built on generations of living. So, just open the book, drop the needle, and let it spin; every track is a poem I want to dance to.--A. Van Jordan, author of When I Waked, I Cried to Dream Again

'Imagine / the land without the conflicts, ' writes Ajibola Tolase in his blazing debut, 2000 Blacks. From Nigeria to America, Tolase explores the surrealness that arises from living in repressive spaces. Yet despite the violence embedded in systems of power, 'the native word for burn is the same as dance.' This is a necessary poetry that leaves no quarter unsinged, a revelation in its willingness to dwell in the unimaginable.--Quan Barry, author of Auction

The Cave Canem Prize celebrates the richness of Black culture and the depth of our shared experience. Ajibola Tolase exemplifies the essence of creativity and resilience, using his poetry to shed light on the beauty and complexity of the Black experience.--Lynne Thompson, Cave Canem Prize judge, Los Angeles poet laureate, and author of Fretwork

Yes, there is a villanelle and sonnets flanked by abcedarians, but it's the percussive vernacular that guides me through Ajibola Tolase's 2000 Blacks. It's the revelrous, 'If everyone celebrated / what didn't kill them, we can pretend / to be immortals' and the irreverent 'I would have hugged him / until he felt shame' that sings to me. Be it the tongue's many failings, absence, migration, Tolase has created a world I'll trumpet for years to come.--Clemonce Heard, author of Tragic City

About the Author

Ajibola Tolase is a Nigerian poet and essayist. His writing has appeared in LitHub, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry, and elsewhere. He is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and has received a creative writing grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation. He is the 2023-2024 Olive B. O'Connor Fellow in Poetry at Colgate University and graduated from the MFA program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.