SERENADES AND LAMENTATIONS A Collection of Poems by Ademola Araoye

Serenades and Lamentations intertwine a personal odyssey with the sordid trauma of a land that has delicately perched on the precipice of a cliffhanger. In Serenades, the poems ascend to subliminal heights of sentiment and personal emotion in triumphant fellowship with the significant human Other. In the troughs of life, marked by society's descent into an abyss, Lamentations capture the frenetic devaluation of the discounted life. It is the cry of the underdog, roasted in a heartless desiccation of transactional politics of entrepreneurs seemingly

determined to drown society in unquenchable sorrow. In that sacrilegious enterprise, even the sacred has been hollowed out in the granite mill of human destruction. The poems span over a thirty-year period and are set in locales across the world that reflect the lived experience of the poet. Many of the poems have appeared in journals across Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The poet, Ademola Araoye is a retired diplomat. He is widely traveled. He lives in Ibadan, Southwest Nigeria.