On the fertile footpath
to the weedy farm
he fell…
(Sun and Moon at a twilight reunion)
…and died not
…and the conceived son
from the drunk communion
was not a toad-cow…
The mirror
reflects the contents of the mind…
The soul
harbours the deeds of the body…
The crab
surely begets a crab
You sow what you reaped
the farming season before…
Then he saw no heavens
…but a vast emptiness
He felt his feet suspend in space:
the Lotus-Eater cum Palm-Wine Gulper
He sang songs of lamentations
beneath the palm-wine seller’s shed
He tossed
turned
…tossed
Balanced himself
Fell
Broke his neck
His son has a bottle in his back pocket
A stoic man to succeed his father
…and he has his father’s Drunk Chromosomes
He is his father
moulted into prime youthfulness
to continue plying his trade
To be the gods’ concrete example of advice.
Old poems at OGOV don't die, but live on in our archives! Every once in a while we will dust one off for our newer readers to enjoy. "The Drunk Chromosomes of a Drunk..." was orginally published on OGOV on April 17th, 2010.
Biography:
Nana Fredua-Agyeman is a Ghanaian poet who has been writing poetry for the past decade. Some of his poems have been published in Ghana Today International, Africa Resource (at www.africaresource.com and www.africaknowledgeproject.org) and the upcoming Ghana Poetry Project. He has a prepared manuscript titled ‘BLACK PATHOLOGY’, which he hopes to get published one day. In 2006 he discovered Haiku and have had some of his Haiku been published in America, Ireland, Japan etc in magazines such as Frogpond, Acorn, and The Heron’s Nest and at many e-zines such as SimplyHaiku and Shamrock.
Five Questions with Nana Fredua-Agyeman:
1. When you write, what is the primary audience you consider yourself to be writing for? Yourself? Your friends? Ghanaians? A global audience?
I mostly do not write for myself and even when I address myself in my poems I do so in the plural (even if I use the word ‘I’) signifying humanity in general. Hence, I would say I write for a global audience though sometimes I try to be a Ghanaian.
2. You mentioned in your last interview how important it is to you to perform your poems. Do you get many opportunities to perform your work in public? If so, in what venues?
This is an interesting question. I wish I could perform my poems the way I want them to be performed. I would love to but at the moment I have not and there are certain inward inhibitions that have prevented me from this, but things would change soon. Presently, I read to an audience and my main audience had been the members of the Ehalakasa Poetry Talk Party. This Poetry Club is a vibrant one based in Accra and we meet once every fortnight on Sunday at the Nubuke Foundation, an art gallery building by one of Ghana’s most prominent artists Kofi Sertodji. We hope to define the Ghanaian poetry scene.
3. If you could change one thing to improve the poetry scene in Ghana, what would it be?
Lack of, or poor, exposure. We have a lot of talents, some very good, others not so good. But what is lacking is the exposure of these works to a larger population. It is when people read and criticize one’s work that one begins to appreciate the impact of one’s work and then improve upon it. Most of the time poetry in Ghana has been from poet to poet. The publishing industry is not so keen in publishing poetry, hence we have to rely on people and presses like Mensa Press, Ghana Poetry Project and other websites for us to be heard. Yet aren’t poems meant to address issues and change circumstances? If this is to be achieved we would need to reach out to a larger audience and this would require bold steps by publishers.
4. You have noted in the past your interest in Haiku. What is it about the Haiku form that interests you?
Haiku is a Japanese poetry that developed many years ago and entered English not so long ago. It has two parts: a phrase part and a fragment part, and is composed of three lines. It is concise and devoid of any personal feelings, that is the experts say ‘show it, don’t say it’. One dimension of this poem is that it juxtaposes two things that are seemingly unrelated to make a powerful statement. Again, it shouldn’t be more than 17 syllables; however, some have argued that in English it should be about 12 or 13 syllables. This small introduction shows you that Haiku, being the smallest of all poetry forms, has the largest number of rules. And it is the ability to write in this form that brings fulfillment to one’s life especially if it is accepted by the masters. It also brings order to one’s life. The following piece of mine was published in The Mainichi Daily News of Japan on March 7, 2009:
harmattan night
a beggar's breath
disperses the crowd
5. It's been a year since we last heard from you. What has happened in your writing life in that time? [Editor's Note: This interview is from 2010]
I have not been prolific over the past year, though I have presented my poems to an audience more. It was last year that I started reading my works to an audience. It is uplifting to when after you have read to an audience someone would approach you and tell you how wonderful that piece was, and say this genuinely. I have also worked on my manuscript and have submitted my works to other publishers and journals such as the Ghana Poetry Project, Mensa Press and many others.
Contact Nana:
freduagyeman(at)yahoo.com
On the fertile footpath
to the weedy farm
he fell…
(Sun and Moon at a twilight reunion)
…and died not
…and the conceived son
from the drunk communion
was not a toad-cow…
The mirror
reflects the contents of the mind…
The soul
harbours the deeds of the body…
The crab
surely begets a crab
You sow what you reaped
the farming season before…
Then he saw no heavens
…but a vast emptiness
He felt his feet suspend in space:
the Lotus-Eater cum Palm-Wine Gulper
He sang songs of lamentations
beneath the palm-wine seller’s shed
He tossed
turned
…tossed
Balanced himself
Fell
Broke his neck
His son has a bottle in his back pocket
A stoic man to succeed his father
…and he has his father’s Drunk Chromosomes
He is his father
moulted into prime youthfulness
to continue plying his trade
To be the gods’ concrete example of advice.
Biography:Nana Fredua-Agyeman is a Ghanaian poet who has been writing poetry for the past decade. Some of his poems have been published in Ghana Today International, Africa Resource (at www.africaresource.com and www.africaknowledgeproject.org) and the upcoming Ghana Poetry Project. He has a prepared manuscript titled ‘BLACK PATHOLOGY’, which he hopes to get published one day. In 2006 he discovered Haiku and have had some of his Haiku been published in America, Ireland, Japan etc in magazines such as Frogpond, Acorn, and The Heron’s Nest and at many e-zines such as SimplyHaiku and Shamrock.
Five Questions with Nana Fredua-Agyeman:1. When you write, what is the primary audience you consider yourself to be writing for? Yourself? Your friends? Ghanaians? A global audience?
I mostly do not write for myself and even when I address myself in my poems I do so in the plural (even if I use the word ‘I’) signifying humanity in general. Hence, I would say I write for a global audience though sometimes I try to be a Ghanaian.
2. You mentioned in your last interview how important it is to you to perform your poems. Do you get many opportunities to perform your work in public? If so, in what venues?
This is an interesting question. I wish I could perform my poems the way I want them to be performed. I would love to but at the moment I have not and there are certain inward inhibitions that have prevented me from this, but things would change soon. Presently, I read to an audience and my main audience had been the members of the Ehalakasa Poetry Talk Party. This Poetry Club is a vibrant one based in Accra and we meet once every fortnight on Sunday at the Nubuke Foundation, an art gallery building by one of Ghana’s most prominent artists Kofi Sertodji. We hope to define the Ghanaian poetry scene.
3. If you could change one thing to improve the poetry scene in Ghana, what would it be?
Lack of, or poor, exposure. We have a lot of talents, some very good, others not so good. But what is lacking is the exposure of these works to a larger population. It is when people read and criticize one’s work that one begins to appreciate the impact of one’s work and then improve upon it. Most of the time poetry in Ghana has been from poet to poet. The publishing industry is not so keen in publishing poetry, hence we have to rely on people and presses like Mensa Press, Ghana Poetry Project and other websites for us to be heard. Yet aren’t poems meant to address issues and change circumstances? If this is to be achieved we would need to reach out to a larger audience and this would require bold steps by publishers.
4. You have noted in the past your interest in Haiku. What is it about the Haiku form that interests you?
Haiku is a Japanese poetry that developed many years ago and entered English not so long ago. It has two parts: a phrase part and a fragment part, and is composed of three lines. It is concise and devoid of any personal feelings, that is the experts say ‘show it, don’t say it’. One dimension of this poem is that it juxtaposes two things that are seemingly unrelated to make a powerful statement. Again, it shouldn’t be more than 17 syllables; however, some have argued that in English it should be about 12 or 13 syllables. This small introduction shows you that Haiku, being the smallest of all poetry forms, has the largest number of rules. And it is the ability to write in this form that brings fulfillment to one’s life especially if it is accepted by the masters. It also brings order to one’s life. The following piece of mine was published in The Mainichi Daily News of Japan on March 7, 2009:
harmattan night
a beggar's breath
disperses the crowd
5. It's been a year since we last heard from you. What has happened in your writing life in that time?
I have not been prolific over the past year, though I have presented my poems to an audience more. It was last year that I started reading my works to an audience. It is uplifting to when after you have read to an audience someone would approach you and tell you how wonderful that piece was, and say this genuinely. I have also worked on my manuscript and have submitted my works to other publishers and journals such as the Ghana Poetry Project, Mensa Press and many others.
Contact Nana:freduagyeman(at)yahoo.com
I speak of nothing especially not of you
Who, tearing his singed ear-ringed ears, sold his
Haughty humiliated heart to his hunter
Who, hibernating within a cocoon of assumed innocence
Would have been wiped dry
By the dawn-morn sun
But like leaves which listen not
To the dews’ news
You lost your hold
And he moulted into a bulldozing caterpillar
I speak of what must be of our being
…or perhaps should have been
If not for deadly deeds our hands have done
And searing scenes our soaring eyes have seen
In its seamless seeming search for meaning or sign
My unkind mind did find a wine
A seller had left in the cellar to unsell
Or perhaps to resell to well our cells
But which, upon further fermentation,
Fortified our fractured friendship with reason
Making our minds a fertile field to fruit
Root and recruit mutilators for the harvests of souls
I paint a pretty picture with pure passion
On the path of Picasso
And they patiently unite with the silent elements
To suck, crack and crush the colours
Off the canvass,
Kwame Nkrumah
Jomo Kenyatta
Patrice Lumumba
Steve Biko
Ken Saro-Wiwa
Nelson Mandela
Midnight light-censored life-imprisoned impressionists
Long-term time-tested thirsty surrealists
Prophets are not made
If you don’t believe it ask your God
Or your great great great grandmother
Whose bones are lost beneath stalagmites of green grass
To escape his wickedness
They walked back backwardly
Through mad halls
Through mud walls
And through floors and doors
Sani Abacha
Mobutu Sesseko
Idi Amin
Foday Sanko
Charles Taylor
Jonas Savimbe
The cart is before the horse now
And the pushers are before the cart
With their forty fore-feet firmly fixed in concrete
…pushing and ushering the passengers
Shamelessly through…
Demented halls
Granite walls
Floors
And doors
Into the enchanting chambers of charms and chains
Into the enchanting chambers of chains and pains
The train is railing waywardly
Toward the emergency ward
Of the fern-fortified,
Bent-bed ramshackle clinic…
The rails are all roller-coaster crooked
Hooked unto their over-bloating gloating greed
To feed these greeds
To sate these insatiable palates
They took the land many a yore
From New York
…to Chorkor
Without regard to the lore
Biography:
Nana Fredua-Agyeman is a 28-year old Ghanaian living in Ghana. He holds a Master of Philosophy degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ghana. Some of his poems have been published in Ghana Today International. In 2006 he discovered Haiku and have had some of his Haiku been published in America, Ireland and in e-zines.
Five Questions with Nana Fredua-Agyeman:1. How long have you been writing poetry?
I have been writing poetry since 1998, just after my secondary school education.
2. Who are your favourite poets? Which poets have most inspired and informed your work?
My favourite poets are Atukwei Okai, Imomotime Okara, John Donne, Alexander Pope and John Milton. However, the one who has influence my writing is Atukwei Okai. His play with words and sounds attracts me.
3. What do you hope to accomplish with your poetry?
I hope that humanity would step back and observe their actions, whether their actions are helping us achieve the good of humanity. I believe that we have lost the direction as humans and that's what I want to show. In all I hope my poems bring a realisation to people, in all we are all one.
4. How important is the aural element of poetry to you? Is it more important to read a poem, or to hear it?
To me my poems are meant to be read aloud rather than to be heard. This is because of the visual presentation of my work. They speak a lot on paper and it requires passion to read them.
5. Are you working on any new projects or poems that you think our readers might be interested in?
Presently I am compiling a manuscript of my poems. I am also writing Haiku (a kind of Japanese poetry) and have had some of them published in Haiku magazines in America and Ireland and in some e-zines.
Contact Nana:freduagyeman(at)yahoo.com
