Whispers from the Lion Mountain

This beautifully written book of mostly solemn poetry succintly captures the true ordeal of an African country in the midst of war, violence, demise, corruption, poverty, and hope. Smith creates a relation between these varying themes that abounded in his motherland, Sierra Leone, between the period 1991–2002. He ponders the future of the country he grew up seeing being torn apart by civil war through his sleek and subtle yet easy-to-understand poetry. Between the lines, though, this young poet's voice reechoes a certain optimism that the Lion Mountain (Sierra Leone's moniker) will bounce back refreshed and take its rightful place in the world.