Mental Fight: An Epic Poem

Mental Fight: An Epic Poem

by Ben Okri
Mental Fight: An Epic Poem

Mental Fight: An Epic Poem

by Ben Okri

Hardcover

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Overview

An epic poem touching on issues of racism, intolerance, and environmental destruction, from the Booker Prize–winning author.

There is much to celebrate in the human journey so far—art in all its forms, advances made in the fields of technology and medicine, and for many of us, the miracle of freedom. But there is also much to regret—racism, intolerance, the destruction of our environment, the reality and the legacy of slavery. In this long, sustained consideration of the state we find ourselves in, Ben Okri invokes the past to explain the present, and sings out a message of hope. The future is still ours to make.

This epic poem, an anthem for the twenty-first century, first appeared in The Times in January 1999. Its message could hardly be more relevant to our present condition. Discover this revised edition of an inspiring and extraordinarily tender work.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781635422900
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
Publication date: 10/10/2023
Pages: 96
Sales rank: 1,095,708
Product dimensions: 5.21(w) x 7.81(h) x 0.46(d)

About the Author

Ben Okri is a playwright, poet, novelist, essayist, short-story writer, anthologist, and aphorist. He has also written film scripts. His works have won numerous national and international prizes, including the Booker Prize for Fiction. His books include the eco-fable Every Leaf a Hallelujah, the play Changing Destiny, the genre-bending climate fiction Tiger Work, the poetry collections A Fire in My Head and Mental Fight, and the novels Astonishing the Gods, The Last Gift of the Master Artists, and Dangerous Love. In 2023 he received a knighthood for services to literature.

Read an Excerpt

ONE

Time
to be real

I  
An illusion by which we can
Become more real.
A moment unremarked
By the universe,
By nature, the seasons, or stars.
Moment we have marked out
In timelessness.
Human moment.
Making a ritual, a drama, a tear
On eternity. Domesticating
The infinite.
Contemplating quantum questions:
Time, death, new beginnings,
Regeneration, cycles, the unknown.

II
 
Let uncontemplated regions
Of time project themselves
Into your sleeping consciousness,
Inducing terror, or mental liberation.
So death-confrontation
Paralyzes some with despair
And makes others poison
Themselves with emptiness
But releases in a fortunate few
A rare quality of enlightenment,
A sense of the limited time we have
Here on earth to live magnificently
To be as great and happy as we can
To explore our potentials beyond the limits
To lose our fear of death
Having gained greater love
And reverence for life,
Its incommensurable golden brevity.
 
That’s how it is
With this moment.
Gigantic death
Enormous birth.
Mighty moment
In timelessness.

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