ImageNations

Testament of the Seasons  (2013) is an anthology of poems in fourteen segments by Mawuli Adzei collected over a period of three decades. The poems cover wide ranging issues: from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the bombing of the World Trade Centre; from the Arab Springs to the Cold War and Holocaust; from love to identity and race and death. Mawuli's anthology consist of poems about issues that has affected his world views. He talks about the hegemony of the West as wells as the tribalism at home and his love for his people. Mawuli would not be bolted to a single place; he is  'neither a signifyin' monkey/ Nor a simulating chameleon'.  Yet, he is a member of his clan; their mirror image for if you  just touch my face/ You touch a clan. The anthology opens with  Winds of Change  - a collection of poems about the recent seemingly stochastic uprisings that swept large parts of North Africa and Middle East. The segment opens with  Springtime , a poe...

The Writers Project of Ghana has a book club it prefers to call The Book and Discussion Club which meets once every month to discuss the selected text for the month. The Book and Discussion Club has selected and read several books since its formation in 2011. Last month's (March) book was Mawuli Adzei 's collection of poems Testament of the Seasons . When information reached Dr Adzei - author of Taboo  - that we were going to read and discuss his book, he volunteered to be present. It was always going to be tricky discussing and interrogating the work of a writer in his or her presence. In his absence you could always say whatever you like and this was the first time it was happening. The Book Club has played host to some authors before, though their works were not under discussion at the time of the meeting. We have had Binyavanga Wainaina and Kojo Laing visiting us and reading to us their works. ( Note that this discussion is different from the monthly Book Reading ...

The arts and its creators have since creation suffered from man's unrestrained penchant for categorisation. It is this attitude and reflexive thoughts that create good and bad with nothing in between; superior and inferior with destructive consequences. However, to writers and artistes, this Inherent Discrimination Syndrome (do not google this) could stifle creation, especially when the pot is binary or discrete with concomitant bipolar descriptions - negative for A and positive for B. Most work of fiction is classified as either literary fiction or pulp fiction with the academics favouring the latter. Yet, there are several works that could not be easily classified as belonging to either camp. Today, that definite mark is gradually fading, thanks to authors like China Melville.  Mawuli Adzei's Taboo  (Kwadwoan Publishers, 2012; 247) belong to this loose group. The story itself could be described as postmodernist in its deconstruction of culture and its embedded rel...

A traveller who asks for direction to his destination does not lose his way. [13] A dog does not chase after a fowl that picks its bone; it knows the fowl does not eat bone and will eventually drop it. [17] [I]t is in the groove of the back and the synchronicity of the dancers' arms and elbows, as they enact their intricate embroidery of styles, that you know who the master drummer is. [20] [W]hen a club strikes the forehead, the victim does not enquire of blood. [26] Two pots, our elders say, do not spoil liquor. If one does, the other will not. [34] According to the sages, good and bad news often travelled together in the same boat. Whichever disembarked first held the audience captive. [41] It's from the elders that the youth must pick their honing further. Life is the same. The difference between the elders and the youth is that the elders are the forerunners and have garnered enough valuable life experience before the youth tasted the breath of lif...