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.

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

Something Beautiful

I want to write something beautiful
Not a poem
For I fear the gruesome reality
Might shock me
Shattering the smithereens 

Of what so human is left

Of my community's love

I want to write something beautiful

Not a poem

For I might record something grim

Wiping the smiles off the walls

Of strangers faces that greet me

Each morning

On Amantra Street

I want to write something beautiful

Not a poem

For I must capture lost dreams

Why passers-by pass by

Erasing our once communal love

But what I heard this morning was beautiful again:

Of You telling me "we don't know you yet we love you"

19 December 2012.

Osu.

An Ode for Nana Addo

I wrote this poem on Thursday, 13 December, a few days after the declaration of the election results. What is missing in the poem is the last futuristic stanza, which a friend promised to complete. While that remains to be done, I publish this poem for all Ghanaians. Enjoy.


For a decade
Your politicking years was robbed
Dragged through the rubble
Forced to sleep at 6PM like a chicken
Your hot head filled with nightmares
Of dummy soldiers walking in your cortex
You lost your sense of smell
To the stench of khaki uniforms field with grease
And all that was left was ashes
For you to rub your fingers in.

For another decade
You fought from within
Among your own you showed
How your difficult life was raided
Why it was your turn
Because you were a vanguard
You shined in Ghana's dark ages
When your people stared into the barrel of AK47s
But you missed their thumb
And another star died.

For yet another decade
The cloud was clear and you had crossed rivers
Y3nim wo dada yet you were "Milled"
Stretched to the limit
Then you gave up only to return
Upon being stampeded by your own Cash
But you were tired of paying for all
And the last lap was to be free until nature interfered
Replacing death with unknown new life
It was then you were done.

Corporate Ghana Woman - A Poem

A poem for you all: Corporate Ghana Woman

This tight skirt

That brings out  
the full ambit

Of Your Elmina Sea Defence
And a body-revealing blouse
or a long-sleeved shirt
That shows Your bloom

Your bottom power,

Dunaa ni mashi

Evenly distributed

Like ECG, showing where the power lies

Wedged—
Below Your curved
waist like Madagascar
in Communion with Africa's
Mainland siblings

You know where the Power lies

You know that Power lies.

22 October 2012. Ridge

Our President Died: On Mills' Death

When a someone dies, you cannot say you do not feel it. When a president dies, you just get lost. Today, Ghana, we have lost our president. He was a man who loved and hated. There is one thing we can do: Respect his memory.

In this light, I wrote a poem as Blogging Ghana members blog today to show the world how we feel in this country at the tragic loss. Here it is:

Our President Died

When the cock crowed

And the hen went picking

The rocks amidst the seeds chocked her

The chickens that hated her stood transfixed

Gazing at their magic wands

Did it cut her up to smithereens?

Rumours of wishes of her death

Spread viciously by wickedly jealous ants

Her lovers were many, and – but

Their chicken hearts spoke silently

She choked finally.