The Echo of a Cry in the Dark

Living in the United States and sleeping every night with the significance of a decade long civil war in Sierra Leone, his home country, Amara Momoh dreamt of writing a book.

As the sound a single teardrop makes on black skin, each poem was conceived. Together, the sounds translate into the infinite language that is formed by the drop of black ink on to a blank page to register this potent “echo of a cry in the dark.”

In this echo there is pain and there is pleasure. There is hope for Sierra Leone to be counted among the civilized and there is also promise for its people to prosper in unity as a nation.

This echo is to be heard across borders and cultures for it penetrates the heart of the living through a style of writing that is sensual in imitating the truth as it is beautiful in appealing to the human essence. In a peculiar way, it leaves scars of feelings in a heart and fills the void in a soul.

This book of poems is unique in its genre of contemporary poetry out of Africa.

Amara Momoh began writing poetry in high school where he discovered the art as “a way of reaching into himself and then reaching out to the world.”

Amara was born in Sierra Leone, West Africa. He studied Agriculture in the University of Sierra Leone and, shortly after graduating, migrated to the United States in 1989 just a few years before the country would be plunged into a ten year long brutal civil war.

He also holds a degree in Nursing from the Los Angeles Trade Technical College and he practices as a Critical Care Nurse in Southern California.

He lives with his wife in San Diego where he writes and performs poetry.