the thought movement

August Advances

2010-08-20T17:55:00.006Z

I've become a useless doting dad. All the hustle, travel, reading, performances and (gulp!) even the writing, everything has settled to a simmer in my life and the only thing popping is Little-Miss-Daughter who (I kid you not) is amazing! She's 20 months old and already she's having conversations with me in Ga and English and scolding me (no more, Daddy, no more!). I used to think my mother was making things up when she told me the really complicated things I am supposed to have said at the age of three, but I'm beginning to believe. The human mind is truly, truly amazing! What I can't get my head around is the fact that we lose pretty much all our memory of events up to the age of 3/4, but we don't forget the things we learn e.g. language, whether or not to be afraid of dogs etc. etc. It's mind-boggling. Anyway I'll bore you no longer with Daddyhood. The good thing, with hindsight, is, I did so many sleepless nights BEFORE my daughter was born that it seems I will be releasing new work until I finish the next project. In the meantime, here are some updates.

Tail of the Blue Bird was selected by Writers' Centre Norwich as one of their Summer Reads and right through the year it's been promoted in local bookshops and libraries, which has been amazing. The initiative is now coming to an end, but until the end of August, Tail of the Blue Bird is being discussed online as well as at a special Tail of the Blue Bird Book Club Session at Writers’ Centre Norwich, 14 Princes St, Norwich, Tuesday 24th August, 6pm. To join the online discussions, just go the the WCN Facebook Page. You can even check out their reading guide.

Sticking with discussions, Tail of the Blue Bird, stands a one-in-eleven chance of being chosen for discussion at the African Writers's Evening book discussion on Friday September 17 at the Poetry Cafe and YOU GET £4 toward the cost of the book too. To vote for Tail of the Blue Bird and find out more, visit: African Writers' Evening

Now, book news - or new books news :) I mentioned the release of a Dutch version of Tail of the Blue Bird and I can confirm that it is now out and selling well (you can see it on the publisher's website) and so is the German version (also on the publisher's website), which has had a couple of decent reviews this week [Links: Die Spiegel | Watching the Detectives ]. Well, I'm guessing that they're good because I couldn't make real sense of the automatic translation!

I have also now held in my hands a physical copy of my children's book The Parade (pictured on the left) and I can assure you that it feels good. Plus I am assured that I will receive in tomorrows post a few copies of my début full poetry collection The Makings of You. I am giving five copies away, so the best five pleas I receive detailing why you should get a copy in tweet-length (i.e. text or 140 characters) will get them. I'll reveal the winners at the end of the month :) Of course, this doesn't mean don't buy the book - I need you to buy it so I can earn some royalties, but you can flog the one you bought if you win!

And finally, drum roll... the long-awaited US release! It is still long-awaited, the release date has been pushed back to 20 January 2011, but you can now pre-order it on amazon.com or BN.com AND I will be coming to the US in January/February for a whole month to promote it (with the other two books, of course!). My first reading/signing is likely to be in Rochester, NY but I'm still trying to fix dates so if you know of a local bookstore or college/university that would like to have me visit/sign/read/teach and it's on the East Coast, please contact me so we can work something out. Not many people have seen what the entire cover will look like, but... eyes-left - voila! You're the first, my fans, my everything!

what i'm reading/listening to

listening:
Omara Portuondo - la novia del filin

reading:
Arthur Gakwandi - The Novel and Contemporary Experience in Africa

Quick and dirty grub for writing

2010-08-07T22:35:00.007Z

Recipe:

King Prawn & Spinach Pasta

[Total preparation and cooking time 10-15 minutes]

This dish is one my writing phase quickies, but it’s also apt at this time [August 2010] because Tesco have had 50% off their raw king prawns for a while. Due to my use of sesame oil, you will find it’s not great with cheese, but you can use olive oil instead and Italian it up…

Ingredients:

Pasta or Spaghetti (I tend to go with spaghetti myself)
Spinach (you can use as much as you want – remember it reduces drastically in volume when cooked)
2 tbsp sesame oil King prawns
Garlic (minimum 2 cloves)
Salad/spring onions (if you cut these very small they go in after the prawns)
Fresh chopped or sun dried tomatoes Salt and pepper (according to taste)

Preparation:

Cook and drain the spaghetti/pasta (preferably al dente) and leave in a bowl.
While the spaghetti/pasta is cooking, wash the spinach, chop the garlic and onions and place to one side.
Heat the sesame oil in a frying pan, sauté the garlic for a minute then throw in the spring onions (I tend to cut them prawn size and like them tender but you can always add them later). Add in the prawns and stir fry the contents of the frying pan for a minimum of three minutes (make sure the prawns have turned pink) adding the spinach in the last minute.
Toss the stir-fried mixture with the spaghetti/pasta

Serving:

On hot days I let the dish cool and eat it with fresh chopped tomatoes. On standard English days I eat it hot with sun dried tomatoes. I tend not to use salt (especially when I cook seafood), but I do use loads of fresh ground black pepper/corns.

what i'm reading/listening to

listening:
Mary J. Blige - The Breakthrough

re-reading:
Junot Díaz - Drown

An update for June

2010-06-08T09:22:00.001Z

I admit; this is not really a blog. It's a not-very-faithful-copy of my e-newsletter, but it's all I have time for at present. Anyway, I come with good news... great news: the release of the Tail of the Blue Bird mass market paperback in the UK, release of the Dutch translation, release of the German translation, availability of SIGNED copies in Ghana and the imminent release of a US edition (all in Book News below). I also have three really cool events coming up - the first in relation to the Michael Marks award that I've been shortlisted for, the others with the fabulous Booktrust and Writers Centre Norwich. The details for those are just below in the events section.

events

Wednesday, June 16, 2010: Michael Marks Readings and Award Ceremony - I've been shortlisted for this cool award for my pamphlet ballast: a remix and the event is being held at the British Library's Conference Centre - It starts at 6.30pm (I'll be reading around from 7.00pm) and costs £6 (£4 concessions) and tickets can be bought online from the British Library website or via telephone on 01937 546 546. I have one complimentary ticket to give away on a first-e-mail-first-served basis :)

Thursday, June 17, 2010: Whose Muse is it Anyway? - I'm hosting this fantastic poetic take on 'Whose Line is it Anyway?' at the Free Word Centre in Farringdon: The blurb goes - an evening of funny improvisational performance poetry, hosted by former Booktrust writer in residence Nii Ayikwei Parkes featuring Dizraeli, Laura Dockrill, Doc Brown and Luke Wright. It starts at 7pm and it's only £5 to come! Click here for more details and to buy your ticket

Monday, June 21, 2010: Summer Reads (Norwich) - the Writers Centre in Norwich has included Tail of the Blue Bird in their Summer Reads programme (more here) in which six books have been chosen as Summer Reads Book Club books. There is even a book club session in August for Tail of the Blue Bird, but before that I will be reading at a live event with Naomi Alderman and Mick Jackson. It starts at 6.30pm at the world famous Norfolk and Norwich Milliennium Library and it's ONLY £2 on the door: full details and tickets online. Follow Writers Centre Norwich on Facebook or Twitter.

Book News

Tail of the Blue Bird:

The UK mass market paperback is out and on shelves right now generally ranging from £5.99 on amazon and Foyles to the full £7.99 on waterstones (although they have free postage!). The lowest price, surprisingly, is £5.59 at WHSmiths!

If you're in Ghana, you can get signed copies of the mass market paperback exclusively at SyTris Books on Spintex Road for just GHC15. They also have copies of the trade paperback at GHC25.

Dutch: The Dutch release of the book hits shelves this week in the Netherlands (you can see it on the publisher's website). I have one free copy to give to a Dutch speaker - drop me an e-mail and I'll get it to you!

German: The German release of the book (published by a Swiss publisher) also hits the shelves in a week and can be seen on the publisher's website. I don't have any free copies yet, but look out!

In the USA: A version of 'Tail of the Blue Bird' is set for release in the USA in September (full details to come) so if you know of anyone who would like to review it for a local paper etc. please put them in touch with me now and I will arrange for them to get copies by mid-July so we can drum up some HEAT for the long-awaited US release!

Prize & Praise

2010-02-20T22:01:00.003Z

Two things.
Quickly.

ONE - 'Tail of the Blue Bird' made the shortlist for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book, YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Djama all night :)
TWO - I found a new, short but lovely, review of 'Tail of the Blue Bird' in the current issue of World Literature Today that 'got' some of the politics behind my aesthetic choices. Good times!

Review from World Literature Today, January-February 2010

Nii Ayikwei Parkes. Tail of the Blue Bird. London. Jonathan Cape. 2009. 176 pages. £12.99. isbn 978-0-224-08574-8

One of the most curious attractions of Tail of the Blue Bird is its privileging of Ghanaian languages over English. Nii Ayikwei Parkes tells a wonderful narrative where all the "English" words are italicized and the Ghanaian words of Twi and Ga are not: "It was black and shiny, but when the tall red policeman stepped closer it was wansima, about apem apem thousands." This in itself sets the book apart, and yet it is a revolutionary publication on other levels, too. Parkes has insisted on the use of phonetic script to capture the sounds of Ghanaian English—kєtє, sєbi, Asєm bєn ni!—and interestingly offers no key or glossary for the non-Ghanaian reader. In terms of content, the book marks a moment in time when the postcolonial novel is leaving the stage; there is no "apology" in this narrative, nor is there any great sense of problematic opposites. Things in this book are very much "as they are."

Set in the hinterland of Ghana, the protagonist, Kayo, is "persuaded" by the Ghanaian police force to leave his comfortable forensic laboratory job in Accra to investigate a "whodunnit" in a village of twelve families somewhere in the Ghanaian jungle. The investigation, however, becomes increasingly complex, and Kayo's discussions with Opanyin Poku and Oduro, residents of the village, are told through a web of story and palm wine.

The story within the story explores the mysterious, employing Ghanaian proverbs and ancestral wisdom. In the narrative of Opanyin Poku, we read: "Ei, wonders will never cease. They say nothing is other than what you see, but it is also true that nothing is other than what you don't see."

It would be easy to state that the demonstrative differences of rural versus metropolis, East versus West, and rational versus ethereal are the basic tenets of this book, but that would be doing this publication an injustice. Tail of the Blue Bird reminds us that, although events may be rationalized, explained as "fate," or accepted as the unknown doings of ethereal forces, the universal fact remains that as humans, we all pass through them, live and endure them; whatever our cultural or philosophical stance, we survive life's events to greater or lesser degrees.

Emma Dawson

Keele University

Workshop Freewrites [1]

2010-02-02T12:14:00.002Z

It just occurred to me that I run dozens of workshops every year and I - as a rule - participate in the exercises that I use but rarely go back to them. Well, I've decided to share them: short summaries of the exercises, followed by my output - mostly terrible, but, I guess, they show what writing evolves from.

Exercise: The alphabet stop - I ask someone to say the alphabet in their head and another to stop them, whatever letter is the 'STOP' letter becomes the first letter of words contributed by everyone in the workshop. In this case, the letter was 'T' and the task was to use all the words that came up in two and a half minutes, which, I can assure you is both too little and too much. I don't think I need to mark out the 'T' words, but the aim of the exercise is to force the writer to manoeuvre around an odd selection of words and still deliver something close to a coherent narrative. The result is often odd, but often contains an exquisite seed of quirky brilliance that can form the basis of a more crafted piece of work. I first used this in 2003, partly inspired by an exercise used by fellow poet, Ainsley Burrows.

Output:
The temptation the tell the truth fades any time his vanity reigns triumphant; he wants to express his love, but it's torture for him to lose control and let her know. Tonight, like every other, ten out of ten thoughts are about her and his timidity, his tenacity to his independence, is stretching their togetherness taut as a trampoline; with every new trial she tolerates him less and with time he fears she'll see him as a thing that just came to steal her love today to boast about it tomorrow. He wants her to know it's not that way, but every time he tries to talk he tastes his fear and his treacherous pride traces the contours of his face into a tranquil expression that transfers none of his true thoughts to the tunnels of her tympanum.

Tonight, especially, he feels his foolishness tug at him, a tempestuous thing that trifles with him, transports his words away like a tsunami sweeper until he's standing in front of her - thirty years old, in trendy threads, fiddling with his dreads, trying to tell her he loves her, but sounding like a character from Toonami, like Taz, knowing she'll probably touch and go...

thinking from scratch

2009-11-26T12:00:00.001Z

So, I woke up one morning thinking - or rather wondering - what kinds of scripts African cultures that had no readily identifiable writing systems when they encountered colonial traders would have had. Of course things like Egyptian hieroglyphics and Ashanti Adinkra symbols suggest that the systems would have been pictoral as opposed to abstract. Doing a bit of fine googling I came upon an article by Ding Xinghua [ http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/mcluhan-studies/v1_iss3/1_3art7.htm ] that also leans towards that view based on the living habits of indigenous Africans, the deference for nature, the need-based analysis of things etc. (the article is about Chinese thought and science, but I felt it applied). Here is an extract:

Language can be regarded as the extension of thought. Man accepts, understands his surroundings or the world in terms of the mother tongue he was born with. The writing form of this tongue subliminally influences his mind. A nation's cultural psyche and thinking pattern can be found deeply rooted in the configuration of its writing system.
A number of scholars, like Logan (1986; 1995), Innis (1951) and McLuhan (1964), have studied the impact of writing on thinking patterns, and agreed that each writing system is a great force in shaping the thought of its users.
The Chinese writing system has proved one of the most valuable assets in all of our cultures, yet we are blind to its effects and take its existence for granted. Science and technology in ancient China are literally the outgrowth of its culture which boasts of a history of thousands of years. A careful examination of the origin and structure of the Chinese writing system and its impact on Chinese thinking patterns reveals much in regard to China's systematic and theoretic science and technology.

I. Features of the Chinese Writing System

If we went back in time, we would find that Chinese written language, which originated in the drawing of objects, ideas, and images, was increasingly pictographic, ideographic and concrete, though its present-day counterpart is highly symbolic and abstract. The manner in which Chinese characters were created has been summarized in the popular book, Liushu, or Six Types of Writing.

The pictographic and ideographic nature of Chinese characters conduces to thinking in images, which, in turn, renders Chinese thinking, among other things,

1. analogical

2. nonlinear

3. concrete

4. holistic

5. intuitive

6. in harmony with nature.

A large part of the inventory of Chinese characters was created by analogy to physical or mental existence. In recognizing the characters, their users visualize the meaning without resorting to the process (intermediate phonological decoding) used in recognizing alphabetical writing. This visualizing has become so ingrained that it serves as an environment that allows the users of Chinese writing scripts unusual directness of thinking patterns. It is the most noticeable feature of Chinese culture for the Chinese people to think analogically, that is, to make advantage of correspondence or partial similarity between what is intended and what is conveniently available.

Western linear thinking, partly derived from alphabetic stress on sequence in their writing scripts, helped their users to develop the science of deductive logic, a most significant part of the foundation of modern science. In addition, the alphabetic sequence, in which meaningless individual letters are put together linearly to create meaningful semantic units, had provided the paradigm for the development of analysis by those cultures that used the writing scripts.

The scientific method succeeds by breaking down a system into its basic components and then narrowing the focus to one of those components so that a critical mass of research can produce a breakthrough or new paradigm.
Science analyzes systems into their basic components and deals with them one at a time in a linear fashion." (Logan, 1986:131)

But the Chinese writing script lacks this analytical nature. As a consequence, Chinese thinking patterns tend to be nonlinear and holistic, the opposite of those resulting from alphabetic writing. A holistic approach to nature is one of the most obvious characteristics of ancient China's scientific system.

When writing was invented, man "applied [his] mind to symbols rather than things and went beyond the world of concrete experience into the world of conceptual relations created within an enlarged time and space universe" (Logan, 1986: 46-47).

In the same vein, the phonetic alphabet allows its users to go far beyond the observable or concrete world than does the Chinese writing system, since alphabetic writing is utterly abstract, whereas the Chinese one is highly imitative of the concrete world, expressing things in terms of images. The directness, or the lack of abstraction, in Chinese character-formation shaped the Chinese thinking pattern in such a way that concreteness is the significant feature not only of Chinese civilization but also of Chinese scientific thought.

This feature also brought about the famous Chinese pragmatism with regard to science and its application. Logan reports a similar disregard for abstraction in cultures that had not yet adopted letters: "Abstract scientists will go out of their way to perform experiments to test the universality of their organizational structures, whereas preliterate cultures are content to describe nature as they encounter it. They also limit their studies of nature to that which is immediately practical to them." (Logan, 1986: 122)

To write and think with characters that preserve a very close analogy with what is in the physical world is to suggest continually that the user and nature inhabit the same close system; by contrast, alphabetic systems continually emphasize isolation of knower and known. As a consequence, emphasis on oneness of man and nature, or man's harmony with the nature, is a very important consideration in the Chinese approach to nature.

In sum, the impact of the Chinese graphic form on thinking patterns resulted in a comparatively more advanced development of the right hemisphere of its user's brain. By contrast, the Western thinking pattern, shaped by their phonetic-alphabetic literacy, is characteristically left-brain oriented. Such polarly different graphic forms and their subsequent impact on the mind are worth investigating.

You can read the full article here: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/mcluhan-studies/v1_iss3/1_3art7.htm

The City Will Love You

2009-08-09T15:34:00.000Z

Open publication - Free publishing - More short story

reading from my novel 'Tail of the Blue Bird' at Borders

2009-07-21T14:34:00.001Z

I'll be blogging later. It's been too long, but for now a little video. Thanks for watching!

what June promises

2009-05-28T08:19:00.001Z

It's turning out to be one of those periods when I don't have much time for thought - and since this blog is called 'the thought movement' (homage to 'the love movement' by A Tribe called Quest) it's no surprise I haven't been blogging much. And, I have to admit, European summers always mess with my body clock - in Ghana, the sun goes doan at 6pm plus or minus a few minutes, and rises at 6.30am plus or minus... you know what I mean, your body can respond to light without getting schizophrenic. The thing is, I have been TRYING to write, but that's not moving very swiftly after a pretty good start - and that might be because I'm working on a couple of things at the same time and the deadline is on the one I'm not in the mood for, but hey... Anyway, in between, I'm reading some great poetry from Brazil and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 'Chronicle of a Death Foretold', which was recommended to me by my friend Pablo. With all this going on, it's sort of easy to forget that I have a novel due for release in seven days - one week - quarter of a month(ish), MAN! I am working on arranging a big launch party in July, but - for now - here are a few dates that are lined up for the book in June:

June 1 - Radio interview (details TBC)
June 2 - 12.45 PM - BBC World News interview (TV)
June 3 - 12.30 PM - BBC World Service Africa interview (Radio)
June 4 - Official Release date for Tail of the Blue Bird (available NOW from amazon.co.uk sellers)
June 9 - 11.30 AM - BBC World Service - The Strand reading/interview (pre-recorded - broadcast date TBC)
June 17 - 8.00 PM -reading at Borders Newbury with flipped eye publishing authors
June 25 - 6.00 PM - reading at Borders Leeds with flipped eye publishing authors

I hope you've all got the book, but I know its full price is a bit high for a paperback so REMEMBER you can ask your library to get it. Now reviews as yet, except one from Geek Pie: http://tr.im/mDYt but we're expecting some in the Observer and a couple of other journals.

Cool stuff that's happened? I've been put on a list of GREAT past students of my secondary/high school http://tr.im/mDXs - that's way better than any accolade I'll ever ever get - even if I get the Nobel. I mean it. Achimota School was simply one of the greatest experiences of my life.

On Twitter

2009-04-27T22:05:00.001Z

There is a lot to say, but little time to speak/write. For the time being, follow my novel's progress on Twitter: http://twitter.com/BlueBirdTail

African Writers' Evening video

2009-03-13T16:53:00.001Z

Hisham Matar and I speaking about why we use English as our primary writing language:

a long silence

2009-03-01T09:11:00.001Z

Gosh, it's been a long long time since I blogged! That's not a blog, it's a fact. Well, I have been writing, but new challenges (I've just become a father) and new distractions (I've started work on another novel) have really kept me away from the whole social thing. Also, my new novel comes out on June 4 so I've been trying to coordinate things for that. Regardless, I hope you'll stick with me during this long silence because when I come back - unlike Dr Dre - I'll keep your fire alarms ringing :)

Good stuff this week?

Been listening to Duke Ellington's Black - Brown and Beige, The Roots' - Things Fall Apart, Robert Cray's - shame + a sin, and Vanessa Carlton's - Be Not Nobody
Finished edits on a collection of poetry by Roger Robinson
Found out I will have work in the special 25th anniversary edition of Wasafiri magazine
Did the laundry :)
Cleared out a whole box of paperwork so the missus can walk around the house easier!

Bad stuff?

Taxes - I think I'm being overcharged, can't afford to pay any more than I already have, but I can't reach the tax payment office; their phones are constantly busy
Broke is on the horizon and I just spotted it - that means I have to do more teach-work and less write-work.... arrrgh!
Had to be separated from my daughter for a couple of days
I ran out of palm oil :)
Hey, life isn't that bad so the list has to be shorter than the good stuff list, right?

So, make sure you preorder my book - all the links below - and I'll blog again very soon...

Tail of the Blue Bird by Nii Ayikwei Parkes
Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/d64xs9 | Waterstones: http://tinyurl.com/aqcbbm | WHSmith: http://tinyurl.com/agqs75 | Random House: http://tinyurl.com/bcuu27

Nominations galore

2008-11-11T16:38:00.002Z

So, some of you will know that I am an editor as well as a writer - and I'm pleased to let the world know that I have been longlisted for the UK Young Publishing Entrepreneur award run by the British Council. It's a recognition of all my sleepless nights as an editor so I'm very very proud and to add to that the company, flipped eye publishing, is trying to rack up nominations for the Mashable Open Web Awards in the niche category for our online translation wiki, lexicon [ www.flippedeye.net/lexicon ] please add your nomination below - thanks!

In other news, I have a reading [mainly poetry] in London on November 13 at Lauderdale House, Highgate Hill, Waterlow Park from 8pm. Please come and support.
Event details are also on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/events.php?ref=sb#/event.php?eid=27331766247

I think that's it for now - a real blog to come soon. So much has happened in the world!!

Southbank blogging...

2008-10-25T23:41:00.003Z

So, I'm guest blogging for the Southbank during the Poetry International series but I find that they are holding the blogs for moderation (completely defeating the object of blogging) so I'm putting my first two blogs up here so they can be of use for people who need today's information today, not in two days time!

24/10/08: Prelude
I start with a confession. After close to 8 years of constantly going to literature events - both as a writer and editor - I tend to have a cynical outlook; you could say I'm a bit jaded. That said, the Poetry International programme this year looks very interesting and since I'm masquerading as a member of The Arvon Foundation's Council of Management I'm going to try to look at things a bit differently - a sort of board's eye view, if you will. I'm particularly looking forward to Mourid Barghouti on Saturday (because I LOVE translated poetry) and the TS Eliot Prize lecture, but I will also be at Speechless on Thursday 30 October, because I know a couple of the poets by e-mail and would like to meet them, and also because I edit two of the writers in the line-up. I hope to see you at one of the events.

25/10/08: Opening Salvo: is there life before death?
I feel like I’m wandering in the dark here, dropping little crumbs of thought that I might be able to follow out again. Why? Because the first blog I submitted - Prelude - isn’t even up yet. Why ask people to blog if you’re going to censor what they write? My view is that it is an act of filtering to choose who blogs for you anyway, so, having gone to all that trouble, please, my dear Southbank techie friends, let us express ourselves.

Now to my first event: As I often find, the person whose photo graced the event was the one whose poems moved me the least, but I qualify that by saying that Jorie Graham is a great speaker - I would love for her to be my lecturer - and perhaps on the page I will connect to her poems better, yet on stage it wasn’t quite for me. A little too ponderous, in spite of a few finely wrought lines, and I found myself counting how many ‘ands’ she uses per poem (I won’t do her the dishonour of listing the number) and marvelling at how Americans from the United States love the word ‘humanity’. I found Mark Doty’s narrative style much more engaging; it brought to mind the likes of Leontia Flynn, Niall O’Sullivan with its sudden dips into the philosophical and existential, and perhaps elements of Paul Muldoon’s meanderings and playfulness with language. On the whole though - and this was true for most people I spoke to after the readings - the really striking poetry came in the first half; from Valzynha Mort who in the simplest of language (I’m not certain she has the best translators I must say) amongst many heart-rending passages from the book The Factory of Tears, spoke of lighting the candles of TV sets, thus illuminating a peculiar truth of the modern world - most people can find a TV easier than they can find a candle these days. Valzynha was followed by Mourid Barghouti (the reason I went to the reading in the first place) and he did not disappoint. Am I swayed by the fact that for thses two poets we were reading their ‘texts’ off a sky-high grey screen? I think not - there is something about cadence and truth that transcends language and medium. So, back to Mourid. Absolutely fantastic irony, uncanny eye for everyday happenings that reveal the world. In his words, there are trees whose only fruit is greenness - so true - but only un vrai poète notes that their details belie their sameness and their radiance confirms it [see the complete poem here] and speaks it with ease, humour and compassion from a podium that hides nothing. So too with this event: we saw four poets and there is no doubt that all of them have work that comes to life on the page, but is there life away from the page?

Stolen from Hip Hop

2008-08-26T22:39:00.003Z

OK, so I'd been going into schools and, in trying to get my students, to apply critical minds to poetry, I'd taken in song lyrics, hip hop lyrics - you name it. But they kept making distinctions. So what I came up with, eventually, was a series of poems (one of which I have pasted below) which borrowed heavily from lyrics. I then asked them what they thought of these 'constructions' and they said, 'yeah, nice poems, but more intricate than lyrics.' Then I said, 'well most of the lines here are taken from or inspired by song lyrics so your homework is - guess who wrote what'. Now I'm sharing with you guys... The game here is - if you're a hip hop fan - to guess the origins of the lines in the poem and add them as a comment. To make it easier the lines are numbered - enjoy!

Miss H in the City
by Nii Ayikwei Parkes with props to the original lyricists who inspired the collage

I arrive in the city at dawn, just before sunrise, step
onto shore with hope bright in my eyes. This is
a new start; new dreams away from the hearts I broke;
excitement’s got my heart racing like a hummingbird
pacing. I try to be cool and patient, but it’s harder than
the calculus of quantum leaping. See I’m a small city
boy with big city dreams, I’ve dreamt of this existence
amidst the harbour lights; ships coming and going
like ghosts, dropping – like flies – new dreamers
who prayed for wings. Now I take it all in; its five
dimensions, its six senses. I feel the seven firmaments’
force and hold myself back from screaming. I sit
outside myself, observe from a bird’s eye view, a boy
descending into this fantastic beautiful mess. I wrestle
with words and heartbeats seeking the phrase to express
the moment, but the usual is no longer suitable. So
I rest my eyes on a purple bud bursting into a high-five
flower, its reflection shimmering on tranquil waters
like something greater than depth, something eternal.

And soon there is a girl; filled with magic
and strife and scaled just right. A smile
like a spear, on point and timed to perfection.
I lose myself in it, hear a distant bass ride
out like an ancient mating call. The duration’s
infinite – enough time for me to ponder sugar,
spice, and other things she might be made of.
I feel my flesh burn, my cell walls disintegrate
to allow me to absorb her essence. Her head is
wrapped but her aura peeks out at the back.
The big city’s first riddle and I have no answers.
It’s too loud to think; maybe my dreams are
larger than my hands can grasp. I realise now
the streets are too shrill to ever hear freedom
sing, too crammed for love to grow wings.
A new moon rides high in the metro’s fading
crown; across the way the ancient is manifest
in knife fights. I take a deep city breath, watch
my broken dreams fly to where waters fall
as she walks away – a devil in a blue dress,
a beast in a blue Chrysler, karma coming back
hard. My chest heaves against the evening’s
flesh. I sigh, watch the city lights throb
against a purple flower’s reflection, hope
that from this night a sweet dawn will come.

Re:configuration

2008-08-19T18:50:00.004Z

It's been a while since I blogged and I don't think I will properly for a few weeks yet - way, way too busy! But I recently had a poem Re:configuration published in the PEN International Magazine (the issue is on shelves now and most of it can be seen online at: http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/go/pen-international-magazine), which I'd like to share part of as a post. I'm particularly happy the poem got published for two reasons

It's one of my favourites,
It's one of my more experimental ones.

So, I'm sharing what I call it's second movement, but don't just read - please, let me know what you think...

The story is simple; my father went

with a cancerous light, chasing Swedru

in the shadow of his fat/her for answers

to questions he divined I would ask

forgetting that project/ions dance, shift

like rhythms. In a hot panic he left

before night could come to hurry him

along with songs. My mother bears the scars

but only a fraction of the answers; for

how was she to know she would be the one

I clawed at for maps of my existence – one

in a role meant for absent sound/and/light?

So I am left with darkness; the high

window through which imagination creeps,

the room I at/tempt to enter to evoke

more than fading echoes of footsteps that

haunt me. I am a slave to the hard hold

unable to yield chance to the light/less

of grip that all moments employ for

the velo/city of sand’s passing. Maybe I am

slowly learning that with each green breath

I blow my life away. Rushed, all I want

is for my father to explain what I mean

to my name, how I be/came configured

as Parkes when I don’t harbour its phantom

rhythm beneath my tongue.

I have lost

my way again: did I not hear the tri/angle

and the gankogui tinkling responses into

the vacuum of the drum’s silence? My

father is rest/less again. Please tell him

to open his window for my tear/full chants

have left me hoarse – and my siblings

the thieves too; who took his skin, spirit

and mind, leaving me captive in his body.

We confess our parents never truly told us

their names, we over/heard others calling

them Auntie and Uncle, Mr and Mrs so and so

so we did the same. Did we err? Did I

trap my pa/rents by calling their red shadows

names meant for colours? All I know

is that I am at/tuned to brown like no other

shade, yet cold breath haloes frame me black.

...waiting for the copy edits...

2008-05-09T19:47:00.005Z

So, I'm learning that publishers run on that other time too. The date for my copy edits for Tail of The Blue Bird, has been pushed back twice, and it's very frustrating because I set time aside to go through the edits and get them back so that work can begin on the advance copies of the book. Now, some of you might be wondering what advance copies are or do exactly in publishing. In short they are the first blast of real excitement a writer gets after the book deal - essentially a finished version of your book, complete with a cover design and the final layout is printed almost a year in advance and sent out to the media, famous writers etc. etc. so that radios, newspapers and magazines can start scheduling you for interviews (if they think you/your work are interesting), writers can give you endorsements, and bookstores can make orders - all the things that trigger those quotes that appear on books that make everyone wonder - 'how come the book's only been out two days and they already have that printed on it?' In my case, the struggle to find a publisher because of the unusual (not my word) nature of the book means that luckily (or unluckily) I already have quotes from authors who endorsed the work so that potential publishers would realise that the book was considered good by my peers - I am proudest of my endorsements from Helon Habila, whose work I've been a long-time admirer of, and Courttia Newland, who was one of my early mentors in prose...

Anyway, back to the delay on my copy edits, very frustrating etc etc, but I have been making good use of the time; last week I recorded an excerpt for a fairly new BBC World Service programme called The Forum, and took part in a panel discussion of some of the ideas in the book, and stuff like whether or not Islamic Law is ethical and whether Plato had the right ideas about erotic love in his 'Symposium'. It was supremely interesting (I'll let you know when THEY let me know when it will be broadcast), but the publicity department at my publishers said - oh, couldn't it have been next year? everyone would have forgotten by the time the book comes out! Ah, YE publishers of little faith; haven't you heard about gossip, the bush fire media, alata wire tap, abusua radio, or, for the wine drinkers, the grapevine...? [BTW I welcome comments from my West African readers for any more phrases that exist to describe gossip - it's funny how the mind goes blank sometimes...]

Bottom line is, I'm not completely bored. I even had occasion to celebrate the fact that one of the books I edited last year - 29 Ways to Drown by Niki Aguirre - made it to the longlist of the Frank O'Connor Short Story Prize and was reviewed in today's SUN newspaper (the UK crew will understand the significance of this - it has a circulation of 3 million and pictures of half naked women on Page 3 i.e. West-European-naked, just breasts, which is fully clothed at some of the markets I went to in Cape Coast - over here people get excited when a woman breast feeds in public - as my Naija crew would say, ah ah!)

On that half-clothed note, I bid you adieu, or rather au revoir...

what i'm reading/listening to

listening:
Smokey Robinson & D'Angelo - I have entire folders of their work on my laptop and I have them on loop - I'm in a chilled summer mood...

reading:
Rose by Li Young Lee (something to relax) and Land of our Birth by Ainsley Burrows (something I'm editing)

Poetry Review Comment/Poem

2008-03-04T17:58:00.003Z

Those of you who know me will know I'm one of those poetechs/wiredwriters who is intermittently plugging in to technology - blame it on my two engineer brothers and (of course) my own background in physics/biochemistry/microbiology and the rarely-confessed four hours programming on my friend Ebow's ZX Spectrum when I got so fascinated by the things I could get the computer to do and record on tape - yes, tape! - that I got home late and got my arse acquainted with a lost branch from some random water-starved tree in Accra. Anyway, that's a long roundabout way of saying I put my name in a google alert and got this little nugget from a blog about my poem in the Poetry Review:

"However, there is surprising news for today - I've just finished reading the latest "Poetry Review" magazine and it's the first time I've closed the final pages and haven't wondered what on earth all the fuss was about. Not a bad edition really - an undercurrent of pretention here and there of course, but at that level you probably have to expect it. There were some poems I even enjoyed (Good God, Carruthers, pass me the smellings salts: the words "enjoy" and "Poetry Review" have never been in the same paragraph before). I will even go so far as to say I noted some poets and their collections down on my buying list. Particular favourites were Siriol Troup for being charmingly Japanese about WH Auden (ah, the story is in the spaces, m'dear ...), Hugo Williams for being charmingly Victorian, Nii Ayikwei Parkes for putting the people back into politics, and Jane Draycott for a wonderful scene of miscommunication. Also nice to see my old favourite, Neil Rollinson, in there. Though they were rather snippety about his latest collection, Demolition. Hey, I didn't think it was that bad. Not vintage Rollinson for sure, but not terrible!" - the blog is Anne Brooke's Writing Journal

Putting 'the people back into politics' - I thought, yeah, that's probably an accurate description of what I try to do, but whether or not I'm successful is always up to the reader - it's just good to know that occasionally people feel what I'm trying to say - on that note, here's an excerpt from the poem for those of you who haven't had the chance to pick up the review (On Pleasure):

Lebanon was in a shade of peace – stilled
from war – and regardless of what anyone said
about you, I had never heard a name so

beautiful; Sajeeda. Late afternoon, we held

hands by the gutter as we walked to our
secret haunt. Above the graveyard of cars,
our seven year old bodies twisted into

the rust and glass cage of a Nissan Sunny –
forsaken. Nested, we didn’t consider the odds
of dropping like dislodged eggs. In that

strange skyscraper of scrap – a monument
to your mechanic father’s failures, the precise
shape of the green tree in his flag – we

solemnly undressed, as one. We embraced

More information on the issue here

and that's it for today :)

Little Pleasures

2008-03-04T01:18:00.003Z

I haven't blogged in a while, I haven't listened to NEW music in a while, I haven't invented a new recipe in a while - it's been that kind of year. I spent most of January and February in my editorial role for flipped eye publishing editing work for three of my favourite poets - Ainsley Burrows, Agnes Meadows, Charlotte Ansell - and ended the month of February with a celebration event called reaching the 10000, marking a slaes landmark for flipped eye.

But before the end of Feb I went to see Junot Diaz at the Royal Festival Hall and got my copy of the brilliant The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao signed. The book has now joined others on my shelf and it just hit me that about 20-30% of the books I've bought/received in the last year have been signed. Is this the real pleasure of being a writer - that you know/meet so many writers that you get a good chunk of your books signed - and free, even? I don't think so - what I get from those books, really, is inspriration, because I only get books signed by authors I admire - every one of those books is a reminder, a klaxon, a broken record stuck on the word write, write, write, write....

[Oh, started a new notepad for my teaching stuff...]

crossing paths

2008-01-31T23:08:00.001Z

so, in the last three months i've been meeting writers and telling them how great my agent is - only to find they have the same agent... weird! but i also feel it's a good sign... OK, i will blog properly later - got big dreams and dwarf tine!!!

the thomas crown affair

2007-12-24T04:03:00.001Z

yes, i know, it's been a long while since i blogged - life happens and e-living must take a back seat. anyway, during my time away i watched the remake of the thomas crown affair again and i must say i think it's one of pierce brosnan's best films; he shows his pecs and butt, has faye dunaway as his shrink and, man, hasn't that film got one of the best soundtracks? from nina simone to some good old songs from martinique rendered in french kreyol... for a jazz/music lover, that film is right 'cos they allow the music to play, it's not just tiny snippets. so, i've been thinking about thomas crown 'cos, well, you now how intangible things happen that people start to develop explanations for? i've felt like that since my first novel was sold (yes, my first novel tail of the blue bird has been sold to random house in the UK and i started a facebook group for it); i keep hearing stories about who helped me put the book together... as my mother often says hmm... can everybody just take a back seat? the novel started with this image that's been in my head for ages and ages which gradually developed layers as life happened around me... no, i won't go into that, because i'll just get mad and start slagging people off... what i want to say is... that it's been a good year; i moved in with my sweetheart, i sold my novel, i got a fellowship, i paid some bills, i travelled, i dreamed... and i'm STILL making my living as a writer - unbelievable!

and tonight, i bumped into some of my former students from a poetry slam project i worked on, from bishop douglas school (london) in a club and, damn, was i proud? they've grown up so well - mature, well-spoken, full of verve and dreams, and they are all still good friends. everything is alright with the world...

may your years end well too... may thomas crown machinations stay far from your door :)

what i'm reading:
flights of love - bernhard schlink

what i'm listening to:
come into knowledge - RAMP (Roy Ayers Music Production)

what i recommend:
29 ways to drown - niki aguirre (i edited it, but i recommend it because it is just the best collection of shorts i've read this year)
amazon | waterstones | foyles

Story [Socks Ball] on African Writing website

2007-10-07T03:17:00.001Z

Go check it out: http://www.african-writing.com/parkes.htm

I'll be back!

Brooklyn!

2007-09-20T20:44:00.001Z

So, I've been at the Brooklyn Book Festival as an editor, putting on readings and meeting folk and, in the days since, I've been scouting Brooklyn, which appears much more European in architecture than Manhattan with its high skylines, and, I swear, I saw a house front exactly like the Cosby's! What's been cool is checking out different areas; like Bed Stuy where I saw a guy from Ghana sitting on a stoop with an umbrella, manning his store from the outside, just like they do in Accra's famous Makola market; Park Slope, where I hung out with fellow Ghanaian writer Mohammed Naseehu Ali (whose 'Prophet of Zongo Street' you absolutely HAVE to buy and check out); and Canarsie, where I'm staying with my friend and fellow poet, Ainsley Burrows, where I had the best Ackee and Salt Fish with green bananas this morning.

Right now, I'm sitting in a library off Fulton Street marveling at how many kids rush straight from school to the library, wondering what London is doing wrong!

Anyway, news links:
My dear friends, Lloyd & Adwoa seem to be doing well/surviving in 'The Restaurant': http://www.bbc.co.uk/restaurant/contestants/lloyd_adwoa.shtml
I just did a piece for the short story website: http://www.theshortstory.org.uk/thinkpiece/index.php4?pieceid=16
and this weekend I'll be speaking at the Soundbites Festival: http://www.soundbitesnyc.com/

OH, and Bringing the House Down is on soon too - go and book...: http://www.thealbany.org.uk/event.php?event=413

Got to run, but more to come...

the wake of change

2007-08-05T00:49:00.000Z

The last time I blogged Sekou Sundiata had just died. Since then, another literary man - one of my Ghanaian predecessors - Kwesi Brew, has passed on. It's been a period full of mourning, wakes and wakefulness. In the Ga tradition we believe that when someone goes to the other side someone takes on their role in this world, so my thoughts have now turned to the replacements, the poets who will take on the roles, the public voids left by the departure of Sekou and Kwesi. Of course, the replacements will have to carry on being themselves, but better, more elevated selves so that some other emerging writers can become their lesser selves, and so the world adjusts. I will blog on that subject - the idea of who replaces Sekou and Kwesi - later, but for now I remain mindful that in the midst of chaos, there is always cause for celebration and how true that has turned out to be! One of my other poet idols, Charles Simic, has been made Poet Laureate of the United States and I'm ecstatic because he is truly a rare, unconventional and brilliant poet. His book A Wedding in Hell is one of my favourite poetry books along with a few Nerudas and Heaneys, Li Young Lee's The City in Which I Love You and Atukwei Okai's Oath of the Frontomfrom (of course I love all the writers I have edited for waterways and mouthmark but that's another story). Anyway, you can read a poem by Simic on the online version of the New Yorker...

While you're online reading, check out this lovely list of fifty new African writers to watch that I'm privileged to be on... and also go to the Writers Fund Amazon wish list and buy something for the project I'm running in Ghana. I've already got quite a bit lined up but not much in the way of these much-needed books for the Writers' Centre I'm helping set up at the Pan African Writers Association building in Accra. I'm heading out there soon to run some workshops and do some work on the ground so it would be great if a few books turned up while I was there.

Anyway, I'd better go and sleep, but I promise to be a better blogger this August!

what i'm reading/listening to

listening:
Internal Affairs by Pharoahe Monch

All I can say about Pharoahe is he's irreverent, but artistic as hell. His wordplay makes every swear word worth listening to, because each one has a purpose. Great sense of plot too; his storytelling skills would put many a short story writer to shame and, of course, he rhymes as though Queen's needs his end rhyme to build houses with and his internal rhyme to put fuel in their cars. The Mrs and I saw him live in London last month and his new album, Desire, sounded wonderful live. Probably worth checking out too...

reading:
A Heart So White by Javier Marias:

This book was recommended to me by a good friend, Hisham. It is heavy with detail in every scene, moments in which the author pauses to interrogate the world, but it all adds up to make a great story. I'm almost done now...

News Source: Guardian (for Simic announcemnt)

Sekou Sundiata - sadly departed

2007-07-17T20:11:00.001Z

I am sad today. When the flu came I should have known something was in the water; one of my heroes has crossed over. Sekou Sundiata, for me, will always signify the richness of metaphor in voice, writing so complex but delivered with simple heart and emotion so that the vocabulary doesn't throw you; you just get in and he leads you to the full stop.

Sekou, thanks for the inspiration; I will miss you...

"everything in the dream is the dreamer" - Sekou Sundiata
"women believe that God is a man, but a man is very horny." - Sekou Sundiata
"last night I had a nasty dream with peaches and I woke up stuck to myself" - Sekou Sundiata
"the first picture I saw of Charlie Parker was a naked bird on a busted branch with broken wings in Abyssinia Baptist Church" - Sekou Sundiata
"somewhere in America you could buy fries to go with that shake of yours" - Sekou Sundiata
"the year the Mississippi river just sat, like a hard promise, choking on vessels of commerce" - Sekou Sundiata

Most of these quotes are from a poem called "The Sound of Memory", which is perhaps my favourite Sekou poem. Go out there and find him and buy him; all we have left is his voice, but what a voice it is!