Sunday Evening With Ghana Association of Writers (3)

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GAW Sunday

Last Sunday I  attended an evening event with the Ghana Association of Writers, my third so far. Ghana Association of Writers (GAW) Sunday is  a Literary and Cultural Event by the GAW held every first Sunday of the month at PAWA House, Roman Ridge, Accra. The evening apparently took off at 4.00 pm prompt for we were quite late when we got there at 4.45 pm. Things were in full motion by then.

In attendance was Easy After School Haven Band, a band of kids ranging from two years to teens who treated us to a lively rendition of Mariam Makeba’s ‘Patapa’. I was impressed to see this little boy behind the drums playing away as if his life depended on it. Another girl about six years old played the guitar to perfection. It was a beautiful sight and we the grown ups could not help dance to the up beat rhythm. The audience was also treated to poetry recitals by pupils from the Maamobi Prisons Primary and Junior High School. As part of GAW’s outreach programme,  the youth is given the opportunity to showcase their talents at this monthly event.

The highlight of the evening was a book signing by David Kumi, a twelve-year-old Ghanaian boy living in Atlanta, Georgia. When David was about four years old, his grandmother (who was present at the event) taught him how to read and write. These skills obviously motivated him to start penning his own words! By the time David was six years he was writing short stories which led to his first published book, Daniel’s Tales. In 2011, he wrote his second book, Tor and Other Stories. His third book,  Cats Cave (the first in the Cats Cave series) was published this year. Such an inspiration for our young ones coming up 🙂 I got an autographed copy for my two younger boys, of course 🙂

And finally, I got the opportunity to read my works. Yes, I read some of my haiku to the audience and I could hear the ‘oohs’, ‘ahhs’, and ‘hmms’ as I read. There was loud applause, but I can tell you that my two youngest boys applauded the loudest 🙂

Sunday Evening With Ghana Association of Writers (2)

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GAW Sunday

My first Sunday evening with the Ghana Association of Writers took place way back in October 2012 and after blogging about it, I promised to be attending regularly and keep you guys updated. Unfortunately circumstances did not permit me to do so until yesterday when I attended the June event .

Ghana Association of Writers (GAW) Sunday is  a Literary and Cultural Event by the GAW held every first Sunday of the month at PAWA House, Roman Ridge, Accra.

This time I attended the event with a dear friend of mine, Mrs. Charity Boateng who is also the head of the Languages department at the University where I work.   The evening, which took off at 4.50 pm (that is quite late for an event that was to start at 4.00 pm; but this is quite normal in Ghana :-)) was in memory of the late Chinua Achebe, the trail blazer and icon of African Literature.

The audience was treated to poetry recitals by students and pupils from the Accra Girls Senior High School and Maamobi Prisons Primary and Junior High Schools respectively. There were also pupils from Jack and Jill School at Roman Ridge. That GAW provides the opportunity to the youth to showcase their talents is a laudable thing. Interestingly and in line with the theme, the students recited famous quotes from Achebe’s much acclaimed Things Fall Apart.  I particularly liked the following:

• Procrastination is the lazy man’s apology
• If you don’t like my story, write your own

Kudos to these fine artistes in the making. There were also readings by some fine poets including Doris Kuwornu; the president of the GAW, Mr. Gyan Apenteng, and  the  award-winning Ghanaian journalist Kwaku Sekyi-Addo. 

The highlight of the evening was a book launch. The Business Promoter, written by Lindsay Isaac Yaidoo, is as the title suggests a business book on micro finance.

An an elderly gentleman who works as the Metro Director of the Ghana Education Service, but whose name I could not quite make out, recited a haiku he had written in the seventies. 🙂 Oh yes! He started by explaining what a haiku is, giving the 5-7-5 formula and saying it was a Japanese form of poetry and then he went ahead and recited his haiku based on an old man. I was like wow! And the audience gave audible ‘oh’ when the gentleman finished reciting his words. They obviously wanted more. 🙂

Unfortunately I was not able to print any of my poems from the blog to read at the event due to power failure. Please don’t laugh but I don’t have any of my works committed to memory, not even the short Haiku so I could not read extempore. Never mind, I will have a better story to tell next month 🙂 especially if the elderly gentleman happens to be there. The two of us may just rock the place up 🙂