Ese Reviews Haiku Rhapsodies!

Tags

Anthology, Celestien Nudanu, Ghana, Haiku, Haiku Rhapsodies, Poetry, Self 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

 

What cans I say? Much appreciated, my dear Ese. From the bottom of my heart.

Note: Haiku Rhapsodies will soonest be on Amazon!!!

Review: Haiku Rhapsodies by Celestine Nudanu

Tags

Anthology, Celestine Nudanu, Ghana, Haiku, Haiku Rhapsodies, Poetry, Self 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:

new day

a cockcrow stirs

the leaves.

The leaf is life itself being stirred awake by the cockcrow. Celestine also captures the image of the moon in a barrel:

windless night

the full moon

in my 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:

reflection

my mother stares

back at me.

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:

moonless night

suddenly the forest is ablaze

with fireflies.

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:

mother’s pride

his bead earrings

adorn me.

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:

sleepless night

I cradle

your cologne.

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:

balancing act

the precarious road

of a crooked love.

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!!!