Tags
Afriku, Celestine Nudanu, Ghana, Haiku, Haiku Rhapsodies, Ste J
What more can I say, lovely folks? Another sincere and beautiful review from Ste J, a dear friend and insightful book reviewer who lives in England and blogs at Book to the Future. Thank you so much, Ste J. Please, read on. 🙂
Celestine is a prolific writer of poetry, plenty of which is showcased on her blog, Reading Pleasure. After gaining a fan base in the past few years, a book was a welcome treat for her readers. C’s work has featured in many international Haiku publications and as such is already well recognised within the Haiku community.
With clear imagery, each bite sized piece is simply written but layered with visual beauty 
and thoughts personal to the author, this intimate showcasing allows the reader to see a place through Celestine’s eyes. The concepts of the world around her is brought to us in a series delightful vignettes which read like a moment captured in time.
Perusing these, I find myself transported to an Africa I found tangible, Celestine’s eye for observing the things around her and combining them into something so evocative is a pure joy to read. There is a feeling of peace and clarity through the book that encouraged me to take each poem and then spend time to build up one’s image and the accompanying thoughts around it.
The beauty of such poems is that I allowed myself to get lost in this new place, imagination took over and each piece felt like part of a jigsaw building up a picture of an Africa that was in part real and in part my own romantic take upon it. Naturally Ghana and a distinctly African feel came up a lot in my thoughts as I read through but there is also a good amount of content which is distinct from the African connection and appeals at a universal level.
This is a good book to dip into, exploring various themes – Afriku, Nature, Haiku My Heart, The Divine, and Death – and I found myself taking my time to soak up the atmosphere and then build up an image of this personal take on what surrounds us. For me this book is like one of those coffee table books, that one picks up and chooses a page at random but in this case, each morsel is best digested singularly, with concentration and with much reflection.
What are you waiting for my dear? 🙂 Order your copies from Amazon or for those in Ghana, just inbox me! 🙂
Links for Haiku Rhapsodies:
(University of Ghana Workshop, 18th April, 2017, me standing before the class, clarifying a point)
