12 Monday Mar 2018
Posted in African Women Writers, Cherita, Micropoetry, Poetry, Publication, Romance
Tags
Cherita, Ghana, micro-poetry, mirror, Poetry, Whispers of Dawn
(Coming out soon! Whispers of Dawn, A Book of Cherita)
mirror on the wall
do I look
like mother
the dimple
in her cheek
mocks me
© Celestine Nudanu 12/03/18
Links for Haiku Rhapsodies:
07 Wednesday Mar 2018
Posted in African Women Writers, Cherita, Dawn, Micropoetry, Poetry, Publication
CHERITA…
the feeling
that you are
slipping through my fingers
each time I get close
empty breeze
of time
(Coming out soon! Whispers of Dawn, A Book of Cherita)
© Celestine Nudanu 07/03/18Links for Haiku Rhapsodies:
30 Tuesday Aug 2016
Posted in African Women Writers, Afriku, Guests, Haiku, Micropoetry, Poetry, Publication
With kind permission from my dear friend Ese, I’m happy to post her review of my book HAIKU RHAPSODIES. I had earlier given Ese an Advanced Review Copy. 🙂
Dear Celestine,
It has been some time since I received your book on my email – thank you very much for thinking of me and sending it! It really means a lot and is appreciated, hugely.
I do apologize for my delay though, reading it but with various things piling up… Anyway, I needed that time to come…for myself, to be able to just sit down and read it, slowly, feeling all the colors, scents, tastes, hearing all the notes, letting them all melt together and sink in. Knowing you a bit and the way you write, I was looking forward to be able to enjoy the whole book instead of separate haiku I have read on your blog before.
Now, after the last page of “Haiku Rhapsodies” has been read, I must say it truly was such a beautiful experience, a journey “through” everything, dear to your heart and soul. You do paint the pictures with words so vividly that for the one never been in Ghana (like me), now it feels like I have. Even if for a brief moment, feeling aromas, hearing birds and cicadas, chatter of children, walking through a market, “Hosanna” resonating in the church walls, noticing almost “live scenes” of nature, God’ s presence in our lives and human life itself – with not only light but also heavier moments that are inevitable. Yes, I even had that a bit naughty, yet so sensual peek through your bedroom window! 😉
There is so much love, appreciation and kindness in your haiku that really embraced and moved me. And your lovely wit that always makes me smile…it definitely did. I honestly don’t believe your haiku can leave anyone indifferent. Thank you for this unique experience, my dear friend!
how long
to wait for your return
the mangoes bloom
PS: Keep writing…!
PPS: I wrote some haiku down…for me…like I do with lines from the books I read. Will just copy them here that you know the ones that will be saved in my “Quote Notebook”. It really exists, handwritten, thought by thought, through years. Handwriting slightly changes but appreciation for beautiful thoughts never does.
noon heat
a lizard basks
in yesterday’ s raindrops
how long
to wait for your return
the mangoes bloom
reflection
my mother stares
back at me
the night
in flames
fireflies
reckless night
the moon
goes pale
raindrops
ticking off the days
to Easter
freezing cold
the warm breath
of dying love
Note: Haiku Rhapsodies will soonest be on Amazon!!!
24 Wednesday Aug 2016
Posted in African Women Writers, Afriku, Ghana Association of Writers, Haiku, Micropoetry, Poetry, Publication
I do not know if it is ok for me to publish on my blog a review of my haiku collection, Haiku Rhapsodies, by a fellow blogger in Ghana, Paapa Kwesi Amerado. Mind you, Paapa and I have never met face to face though we visit each other’s blog and live just four hours apart. We do communicate also on FB. And I must add that his copy of HR is a verified purchase. 🙂 As I was saying Paapa wrote this review and sent it to my mail and after reading it, I fell in love with it. Oh yes and I said ‘ah, Cestone, why don’t you post this on your blog?’ Does it sound right? Well, I must market my book, must I not? 🙂
Title: Haiku Rhapsodies
Author: Celestine Nudanu
Binding: Paperback
Genre: Poetry (Haiku)
Publisher: Celestine Nudanu (Self Publishing) Ghana
Pages: 84
Publication Date: April 2016
A Review of Celestine Nudanu’s Haiku Rhapsodies by Paapa Kwesi Amerado
What’s Haiku? A very lucid definition appears in the mind’s eye after one has read Haiku Rhapsodies by Celestine Nudanu. The book is her first published work and I must confess that I’ve enjoyed every bit of it. Her poems center on Africa, Nature, Love, the Divine and Death. She makes that categorization in the book for the reader’s ease I think but you’ll notice that some of the poems belong in two or more categories.
With her observant eyes, Nudanu captures moments of nature and daily life, like an expect photographer; you can’t help but fall in love with the images she captures and forces into your mind. For most people the cockcrow is the alarm that wakes us up. It heralds the beginning of the day and she captures this moment aptly here:
The leaf is life itself being stirred awake by the cockcrow. Celestine also captures the image of the moon in a barrel:
his image is close to home. It’s more than just three lines of a poem; it’s a memory of growing up as a kid, fetching water with buckets and placing them under the sky to claim the moon as one’s own or even to try to touch the reflection of the moon. She captures this moment so beautifully with her words.
On Nature, the images she captures are more than delightful. Nudanu opens the eyes and mind to beautiful moments in nature that they’ve for so long ignored. I found these lines quite revealing:
Not only does she capture how a mirror can reproduce our reflection, she also captures in those three lines the wonder in resembling someone. For a moment your reflection staring back at you is not important rather the idea of being the exact copy of another person or having a doppelgänger becomes something wondrous all over again. In those three lines we come to appreciate again that wonderful thing in nature.
Fireflies have always been insects with lights at their “bottom” for me but for Nudanu it’s more than that. She writes:
the night in flames fireflies.
Here these fireflies are flames in the dark of the night. She does it again in:
She has moved the fireflies from a sort of obscurity and given them prominence in these two poems and one cannot help but fall in love with the image she has created.
Nudanu also captures images of love/the heart in the haiku form and again she does so wonderfully. The first poem in this category especially got to me; it’s the pride a mother feels in adorning herself with an ornament her son made for her. The poem:
She not only captures the moment but she captures the pride and love too and leaves the reader in absolute awe. In another poem she captures the feeling of a lover longing for his/her partner but you can trust Nudanu to put it in a more beautiful way. She puts it this way:
This is more than the ordinary hanging on to the pillow or sheets: this is hanging on to an intangible part of the missing partner and only Nudanu can capture it like this. She goes on to capture very aptly the downside of love that many people in relationships eventually have to deal with. She writes:
She’ s right in calling love a balancing act whether it’s crooked or not, after all it’s not always a straight line in matters of love. It’s a balancing act that must be learnt well and she captures it beautifully.
I must say that poem after poem, Haiku Rhapsodies has been for me, a confetti of delightful pleasures and beautiful moments and I entreat everyone to dig in.
Note: Haiku Rhapsodies will soon be on Amazon!!!
03 Friday Jun 2016
Posted in Challenges, Haiku, Haiku My Heart, Poetry, Romance
Tags
Done for Haiku My Heart.
Proposal
moonlit night
words dance on the pages
his proposal
07 Tuesday Apr 2015
Posted in Challenges, Haiku, Poetry, Romance
Done for Haiku Horizons.
night aglow
with dancing words
soul poetry
Copyright © Celestine Nudanu 07/04/15 I appreciate your patience with me as I catch up on your blogs. Thanks a million! Shalom29 Saturday Nov 2014
Tags
inspired by Nomzi‘s beautiful Poem
My Poetry Is My Soul
when you see my words,
you see a part of my pulsating heart
throbbing for you
when you read my words
you read a part of me
that is magic
when my words
make you draw in breath
you gasp
at the essence of me
for in every alphabet
that forms my words
I surrender
a part of my soul to you
my poetry is my soul
Copyright © Celestine Nudanu (29/11/14)I appreciate your patience with me as I catch up on your blogs. Thanks a million! Shalom.
21 Thursday Aug 2014
The photo is by kind permission of Gilly.
Today, instead of a Tanka, I’m trying out the Fibonacci sequence for the second time. Being so bored lately, I’m trying to challenge myself to see where I can go with it. With the Fibonacci the number of syllables in each line must equal the sum of the syllables in the two previous lines. So, start with 0 and 1, add them together to get your next number, which is also 1, 2 comes next, then add 2 and 1 to get 3, and so on. The Fibonacci sequence is: 0,1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21
Poetry: 1 syllable, 1 syllable, 2 syllables, 3 syllables, 5 syllables, 8 syllables, 13 syllables, 21 syllables and so on .. Not an easy form 🙂
Crocosmia
Flames
flames
like
twilight
igniting
my dormant passions
a prequel to the velvet night
mesmerizing moon and dancing silhouettes of ideas
effervescent, they yearn for that cathartic release amidst verdant soils of the mind
passions bursting forth in kaleidoscopic shimmers, they glow with the crocosmia in the early morning sunrise, sweeping me to exhale.
Copyright © Celestine Nudanu (21/08/14)I appreciate your patience with me as I catch up on your blogs. Thanks a million! Shalom.
02 Wednesday Jul 2014
Posted in Challenges, Haiku, Poetry
Done for Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie – Heeding Haiku with HA. This week, we are to analyze everything that we can at this very moment of time and write a haiku or tanka or both to commemorate these few moments of this day of our lives.
All Woman
woman, all woman
unbound by these static lore,
daring to ascend
2
passionate woman
power of the written word
burning in my soul
3
shamelessly woman
these breasts pulsate with desire
for him of my dreams
my womb tastes sweet agony
of birth pangs, cries all is well.
Copyright © Celestine Nudanu 02/07/14)I appreciate your patience with me as I catch up on your blogs. Thanks a million! Shalom!
24 Tuesday Jun 2014
Posted in Events, Poetry, Publication
Like the title of this post says, this is just a little bit of good news to let you guys know that three (3) of my poems have been published in a lovely anthology, Help Wanted: Poets Please Apply edited by talented artist and poet, Emily Sturgill of http://sexinthekitchensink.wordpress.com. Kindle editions are available here. Paperback editions are also available here. The wonderful thing about this anthology is that it contains poems by other great bloggers like Gilly Goldsworthy, Stacy Michelle, Abhilasha Singh and Carrie Page among other greats. So, grab your copies while stock lasts 🙂
