Rajnii Eddins’ In The Coded Language Of This Mortal Tongue is a consistently moving, entrancing, and melodic collection of poems which address what fellow poet Amiri Baraka called “the changing same”. Eddins’ characteristically terse, riveting , (and frequently stinging) ruminations on the multi-lane highway that is – again to quote Baraka-“the African in the West”-are also laced with a love for language and its numerous aural possibilities… I highly recommend reading these works out loud. Let the words roll around your mortal tongues like a beverage of choice. We are more than a little lucky to have poets like Rajnii Eddins in this world.

Reuben Jackson
Poet/ Archivist, Felix E. Grant Jazz Archives, University of The District Of Columbia