Mutumbo’s Sweet Memories

Jan 11, 2011 | ,

Spoken word / poetry has stuttered across the continent, going through ebbs and flows as poets grapple to build platforms and garner the kind of support necessary to sustain a life dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in word, thought and craft. In Ghana, it is no different. Two years ago, I attended the Bless The Mic open mic series in Accra run by Mi Prime Entertainment and briefly met their resident poet, Mutombo. We shared thoughts on poetry, we shared a poem and went our separate ways. In that time, Mutumbo has been paying his dues, and contributing to the development of the scene in...

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We Manifest Word (CP)

Jan 9, 2011 |

written august 8th, 2009 For the writer, the pen is a paintbrush and the words are the colour delicately laid on the canvas. The words bring with them beauty, and sorrow, and laughter. They evoke the full range of human emotion and experience inspiring the soul to do more and be more, sometimes violently, sometimes gently. In this day and age, we have taken to the evolution of mechanism and platforms, using the keyboard and screen for the same thing. We may not know what the future holds but it is necessary to note that the means is not what is important, but the end destination. At the same...

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A Beautiful Soul – Joolz Denby

Apr 5, 2010 |

In 2004, the British Council in South Africa put together a poetry show called The Writers Ball presents Joolz Denby. A couple of us were booked to come and share our poetry at the show, which took place at Horror Cafe in Newtown. We were still finding our own voices as poets and writers and I remember being worried that this poet they were bring in from the UK would possibly look down on our work. I had an image of a matronly woman steeped in the literary and poetic traditions from Chaucer and Shakespeare through to Wilde and Hardy without any interest or consideration for the contemporary...

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The Artist: Activist Publication

Jan 6, 2010 | ,

The power of Twitter. Through a relationship created through Twitter, I was invited to submit some poetry for the publication Artist: Activist - Rehearsing For The Revolution put together by Joi Sears: www.theatreforthefreepeople.com. If you would like to be included in future publications or would like more information on some of the initiatives taking place, check out the site. In the meantime .....these are the words, thoughts, feelings, images and artistry of a range of artists ..... myself included . Click to launch the full edition in a new window.

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Poetry: The Power of Po

Nov 3, 2009 |

The intention is, over time, to record little video clips of my poetry. Often, I get so caught up in how to do it properly, in terms of shooting, that I never get round to anything. This is a poem from my 2005 collection Voices In My Head. The internal debate: do I post the video, the text or the video and the text? I've decided to post the video. March 2018: I've been going through past posts on my blog and finding so many broken links, random ideas, etc. I have always wanted to do poetry videos but more from a conceptual perspective. When I initially posted this many moons ago, I had...

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Bassey Ikpi – Writing Letters

Sep 14, 2009 |

Being a lover of the written and spoken word, I try to explore it as much as possible, often randomly surfing in search of interesting poets and writers (when I probably should be writing). A couple of years ago, I came across the website of Nigerian-American poet Bassey Ikpi and have been following her work since. I then discovered her on twitter and have interacted with her in that space extensively.  So, you can imagine my thrill when I found out that she had been invited to perform at the Arts Alive poetry show, Speak The Mind. I was blessed enough to spend some time with her while she...

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