Review: Afriku (Haiku and Senryu from Ghana) by Adjei Agyei Baah

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Adjei Agyei Baah, Africa, Afriku, Ghana, Haiku, Red Moon Press

Title: Afriku (Haiku and Senryu from Ghana)

Author: Adjei Agyei Baah

Binding: Paperback

Genre: Poetry (Haiku/Afriku)

Pages: 87

Publication Date: 2016

Publishers: Red Moon Press, USA

Review

Happy New Year to you all my lovely friends. I pray this year brings us all much joy and achievement. I am on leave but I shall be blogging every now and then.

Today, I’m posting well, a sort of review of AFRIKU, HAIKU AND SENRYU FROM GHANA. by Adjei Agyei Baah, a fellow Ghanaian and one of the first to write haiku, (long before me) in Ghana. He is the first to coin the term Afriku; haiku written to denote the peculiar culture and imagery of Africa.

Adjei’s is able to capture the depth and wealth of African sounds, sights, images and smells in simple and yet rich language. The added beauty of this debut jewel of a haiku and senryu collection is the translations from English into the local vernacular, Akan. 

How excited l was yesterday as l delved into the book and feasted my eyes and senses.

Simply check these out:

morning dew
perhaps heaven weeps
for mankind.

How very apt. How so profound.

distant cry
the heart fall
of a mother

My heart did a flip when l read this. Motherhood, the joys and pain.

just a moment –
distant lightening connects
sky and earth.

The sheer brilliance, the beauty of such a phenomenon as l imagined it.

Oh and many more.

It is a must to grab a copy of AFRIKU, HAIKU AND SENRYU FROM GHANA. Well done my brother. You make Ghana proud. Adjei’s book is yet to hit Amazon but copies can be obtained from the Red Moon Press.

 

About the Author

Adjei Agyei-Baah is a founding partner of Poetry Foundation Ghana, a teacher, and lecturer for Serwaa Nyarko Girls Senior High School, Kumasi and Institute of Continuing and Distance Education, University of Ghana respectively. He is also the co-editor of Poetry Ink Journal, a yearly poetry anthology in Ghana. He is widely anthologized both home and abroad and among his outstanding works are the praise songs “Ashanti” and “Ghost on Guard” written for the King of Ashanti and the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana respectively.

Adjei is a devotee of the Japanese poetry form haiku and has written and published in e-zines and international journals such as Frogpond, World Haiku Review, The Heron’s Nest, Shamrock etc. and is one of the top winners of 3^rd Japan–Russia Haiku Contest 2014, organized by Akita International University, Japan, making him the ultimate recipient of the Akita Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Award.

Adjei is a co-founder of Africa Haiku Network, and co-launched ‘The Mamba’, Africa’s first international haiku journal.