A Review of Martin Egblewogbe's "Small Changes Within the Dynamic"

This week is Ghana Literature Week. An event where Ghanaians are asked to dedicated the week to reading fiction, poetry or short fiction once it is by a Ghanaian. It is hosted by Kinna Likimani. Here, I write a short review of "Small Changes Within The Dynamic", a short story written by Martin Egblewogbe and contained in his collection Mr Happy And The Hammer of God & Other Stories. (The collection was first self-published by the author in 2008 and republished in 2012 by Ayebia Clarke Publishing Limited. It's available on Amazon)

Starting with what seemed at first as a frivolous fixation on a boot, the reader is pulled along slowly with the narrative. Quite frequently, we are tossed to and fro - the boot still being the ne plus ultra of it all. Then we are teased with the thought of a camera recording and sex and the intension of a man to arrest a situation for confirmation. 

This is how Martin weaves the story of an accomplished man who is married to Fidelia, a cheating wife who is shameless about her escapades, and yet triumphant in her illicit affairs. She has sex with other men in her marital home. And her husband, the narrator, becomes aware of her affairs and puts in place a video camera to capture all on tape. He does. He watches the lurid tape and contemplates murdering his wife Fidelia.

                "Now is the moment for strength.

                  I am going to kill her." p 35

In an instance, one could say that the man - fearing the ridicule of a society that sees him as successful, but would jump on an opportunity like vultures should he divorce Fidelia - decides to end things his way than face public ridicule of failure in marriage. This is telling of an all too familiar condition where individual suffer needlessly for the collective. The confused state of the man is shown in the ambivalence of the society: that the man married a whore, a woman less of himself; yet, the man cannot divorce Fidelia because that same society would ridicule him.

The narrative is slow but not painful. And the deliberateness of it can be exciting. When Fidelia comes home with Mike, her sex partner, the man says to himself:

                  "The cloying sense of her perfume makes me think of a funeral parlour... I will kill

                    two people instead of one. I have become evil:..."

The end is fit for a Hollywood film adaptation. Fidelia looks at herself on the screen, engaging in sex with Mike. She adulates in it. She tells her husband: "That was an invasion of my privacy". The man finally decides to kill them both. But Mike, he has an automatic pistol pointing at the man

                   "That cylinder on the snout is a silencer.

                     I look at the boot."

Cosmic Pandering - A Poem

A poem I wrote together with Dela, aka Efo Dela. I had begun to write a poem, and he genuis-ly picked up on each line and continued. The result was this poem.

You can follow him on Twitter: @Amegaxi. But please, be warned. He can be wretched.
So here we go--->

No rhyme or reason
No time or season
I saw death. All of it. And it was me
I felt life's breath, felt its heat, please let me be
But the shadow remain. Fearful and brunt
The hollow expands. Hopeless and blunt
Deep within the rubbles. In the trenches of your heart
High above these castles, in its crevices let your soul start
It is lost. For death has no heart
It is the cost. For life has no cast
And turning nature's head. Twist it backwards
And sleeping in destiny's bed, there's something we move towards
Yet to every step. Distorting nature. You pay with balance

13 December 2012
Osu, and elsewhere on Twitter.

Smolt - A Poem

Let me drop my eyes

Aligned, to the edge at the touch of your skin

Where your thick thighs

Descend to where my passions begin

Hinged to the rapturous wait

Along the contours of your exterior meat

Acoustically humming to the tingling

Of sensors awakened below my man-ness

As my eyes near your pleasure’s end

I feel your nails etch gently into my skin

My palms bury your firm posterior

My lips perch in your crotch

Inching in on your labium

My tongue cursorily flick its orifice

Continually: gates of joy flow: a drizzle-drozzle

Wet, we lose our-selves in unguided accuracy

23 July 2013. Ridge

Named Golden Baobab Prize Search Hero

I am honoured to have been selected as a SearchHero for the 2013 Golden Baobab Prize. If you have not heard about it yet, read more here and here.

This means I’ll be supporting in the search for the very best writing talent with the greatest potential across the length and breadth of Ghana. If you are a writer or an aspiring writer, I want to keep you on my radar. 

Personally, this means a lot. It means that I don't get to just yap about how we should build a great future for our children, but I get to contribute directly towards that real possibility. Read my interview with the Golden Baobab.

Connect with me here and let’s get more Ghanaian writers to submit to the Golden Baobab Prize.

I say this year’s winner is coming from Ghana. Let’s make it happen, guys!

Submit to the Golden Baobab Prize NOW! Deadline -14th July, 2013.

The Golden Baobab Prize for African Children's Literature

Followers of this blog know that I'm an avid supporter and noisemaker of writers - especially writers who are African. Today, I am introducing the most outstanding literary award on the continent for children's literature: Golden Baobab Prize for African Children’s Literature (2013).

Golden Baobab is a social enterprise seeking to inspire the creation, ensure the production and facilitate the distribution of enthralling, captivating, culturally relevant literary content by African writers and illustrators for African children. And you know I'm all for African content generated by Africans!

The Golden Baobab has organised the most competitive literary prize on the African continent, having received a record number of over 800 submissions since its inception, thereby spearheading a renaissance in African children’s literature. This year, the prize promises to be even better. Yep, the illustration bit is a turn on for me too.

The Golden Baobab Prize for Children’s Literature is calling for African citizens of all ages to write and submit stories to any of the three prize categories for the Golden Baobab, based on eligibility. Read here for more details.

The Writers Project of Ghana supports Ghanaian writers (add Creative Writing Ghana here too), and has supported the Golden Baobab Prize since its inception. Now, I belong here. So Gh writers, stand up and let’s put Ghana on the African literary radar by submitting stories to this year’s Golden Baobab Prize.

If you’re going to be the next big name in African children’s literature, you better go the Golden Baobab Prize way. And if you want to just try out, well, there is nothing to stop you

Deadline for Submission is 14th July, 2013. All the best.

Taking From Me — A Poem

I’m still in the wind, and getting

Sold by

All the lost Souls

At every blink I cannot reach her

She dies. She goes.

She removes her weak shoulder and

Wipes the trail

Of continuity of bold unseen days

I now have much Hate stored away

In a calabash I cannot show.

For God.

For Mother.

For those who hurt her.

Even, for those who force me to

Move on…

Hate

For those who use my own

Strength as chairs to sit on – the

And there remain those

Choking my throat

with Forgetfulness.

Those luring me with Reason and

Life’s givings.

You cannot understand my pain and

Fury;

If you cannot soothe me with the

Comprehension of silence—

I will go to the mountain for peace

If your palm cannot warm out the

Cold sorrows perching on my finger tips;

If your breast cannot wipe my tears—

I will seek the rivers.

And sing dirges to

All the Lost Souls

Dansoman. July 2011.

In the Light of Our Tomorrow

This poem was first published on Akwantuo, an online literary magazine, in June 2010.

Shrinking

Shrinking…

shrinking to the core

Man has lost reason

Man has refused the light

What Man has been longing for ages

Man is shrinking

Shrinking his power of thought

To his vast stretch of rich unusable land

He must lose reason

His eyes set nowhere beyond his corridors

Shrinking, Shrinking, Shrinking

Flipping his very self to hide in his ears

Man cannot think the possible

of the impossible

His firmer grip of the imagery of the impossible

is first forged, then the possible

must be forced out of Man

for he has lost reason

His knowing of everything

has become his nothing

So all things held simple

must first be complex

to be broken down to its core again

That is the unsung philosophy

Cyclical madness

Man has lost reason

So we must go to his funeral

It is at the burial grounds Man must think

who next to follow

in the journey of the burying of Minds

Man has lost reason

So keep your beloved lads indoors

He is a thief of minds

He seeks such stuff to bury

So shut your future up–away from Man

Man is you so shut yourself up

lest you kill another Mind of tomorrow

for your tomorrow

Man has lost reason

So he is shrinking, shrinking to the core

- Nana Yaw Sarpong

A Poem: Humour her a Little

Humour her a little

She is trapped in the fumes

Of ancient cities

Transmogrified to its worst

In present days

Humour her a little

When her head spun

At the piercing thought

Of this city blowing fumes

Into the Earth’s belly

Humour her a little

She crawled to this city

Fleeing her dark homeland

In search of the sweet smell

Of warm Earth to feel between her fingers

Humour her a little

For the trail of her rediscovery

Of peace and purpose

Was pulled down by tractors

Burnt out by real estate contractors

Humour her a little

Her guts choked with smoke

Her lungs bled of distaste

For the city’s despicable ways

Chasing her around the world again

Humour her a little.

24 October 2012. Osu

The Morphology of Your Dance: Poetry

It is poetry month in the United States. In Ghana, we do not have such. In an earlier post last month, I had mentioned something about how the World Poetry Day has been celebrated in Ghana for more than a day. In fact, for a week.

Kinna Likimani of Kinnareads is observing it on a bigger scale with 21 days of poetry. Do check her out

Today, I share an old poem of mine. Happy Poetry Month, Americana

The Morphology of Your Dance

Your pride is as light as your heart

Your heart as weak yet

As purposeful as the Spider’s web

Yours remain where it sits on a knife’s edge

We know the intricacies of your proud dance.

We taught the original: so

Your time and pride is predictable

You Wretched dancing to the dead

Come back with your cobweb heart,

Anaanu ntang!

Let’s see the morphology of your dance.

On the stretch of the Spider’s web

Messing your way to the dead

Your skin did

The adaptation to your cold winds

But you covered your beginnings

Telling us you were original

Playing a tune of subterfuge

Till we are

Subverted in your reverse

Psychology.

We — for the Earth’s movement —

A moment,

Believed

And while drunk with your weak tears

You danced your way into our hearts.

But come!

Let’s see the morphology of your dance

We knew your tricks were

From your weakness

Your imposed fear

That we shall come for your blood

So you came for our lands

Opening up her belly, bloodying your way to your glory

It was you covering your weakness

As you danced your way to the dead.

But when we believed you, we lost, and

You won

Yet we know your pride and time is predictable.

So come let’s see the morphology of your dance

7 December 2011