Book excerpt: Stone Child is about the nameless gemstone child that became a great in the recent history of Sierra Leone, the poet's country. With compassion and moral deliberation, the poems in the first section of this new collection resound with the pain and love that the poet felt as he reflected on the tumultuous politics and tragic destiny of his beautiful land. Other poems are in homage to people and places around the world that have deeply touched the poet. Syl Cheney-Coker is a poet and novelist. His novel The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar won best book in the Africa region of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. He has also won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize; and his poetry has been translated into, Chinese, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.