Why I Go Over

People in the UK still ask me why I go over to the US so much. I could give a whole list of reasons, including my love for interacting with audiences, the importance I attribute to writers from Africa (of various stripes and from a range of countries) being seen and identified as active and valuable contributors to the world's culture without disappearing under institutional labels like 'African-American' etcetera etcetera. However, the bottom line is very basic; in spite of my residence in the UK and my home in Ghana, my biggest audience (measured by the number of people who visit my websites, blogs, follow my facebook and twitter updates) is in the US. I think it's a matter of respect for authors to make themselves available to their audiences, because without them every author would be a person alone in a room doing weird things with words. That's why I go to the US so much.

Workshop Freewrites [1]

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...

NIN

No, it's not Nine-Inch-Nails, it's Nii in the News :)

Just thought I'd share a review from my hard slog at the Brighton Fest:

Wordplay
Nii Parkes
Trying to get kids into Yeats is a tough job, so although Parkes did his best, his own poems about his mum were far more popular with this crowd. Plenty of fun exercises filled this hour-long workshop, with the children briefly discussing their views on poetry (primarily that it should rhyme) before getting stuck into creating poems about themselves and their passions (primarily chicken nuggets). An interesting task saw them learn about writing from the subconscious, signified by an aggressive green lollipop stick. The children obviously had fun being creative, but the session was far too short to really get into much depth on the subject - yet even a short handover makes a welcome break for parents, and Parkes makes a relaxed and inspiring tutor.

(from threeweeks.co.uk)

In the meantime my poem appears on the underground on Monday June 4 (date of the first coup I experienced in Ghana) and there have been some related press releases:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/5221.aspx
http://www.poetrysoc.com/content/education/potu/

And I have come into my own as a contemporary writer:
http://www.contemporarywriters.com/

Finally, I came upon a wikipedia Germany entry for me which I googleated (google-translated) for fun, and it was delicious to find out what gets a rise out of me:
Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a Ghanaian writer and artist, who write Kurzgeschichten, articles, song texts and also RAP. Parkes lives and works at present in London, where he arises to literature also in a Café. Its work has an emphasis in the youth culture, since Parkes works gladly with children and young people.

what's with the dollar bill?

So, I visited a workshop and the students were asked to find a photograph and write something in the style of Lloyd Schwartz's (great critic) Tom Joanides: Which of these statements is true? Being a writer, I could only get my hands on a dollar bill - George Washington - and this is what came out:

Georgie, what's the deal really?

(a) I don't like smiling (b) I'm not smiling because I'm sitting
on hot coals (c) My mother styled my hair after a wave
that nearly drowned her (d) My mirror broke and I needed my friend
to etch me so I could see myself (e) I designed my own clothes using curtains
(f) I love fashion; my favourite colours are black and green (g) I'm a highlander;
there can be only one me (h) I'm a tender person, but don't be misled -
I'll break your back (i) I'm an illegal immigrant with private and public
debts (j) I slept with Faulkner (k) I'm so powerful they named a city
after me (l) Rappers yank my chain (m) Don't let the print fool you;
I'm Black (n) You can wake up now.

OK, you all have a good day now. I will be back to normal (whatever that is!) blogging duties soon :)

what i'm reading/listening to

listening:

Just got myself a little mp3 player and I'm listening to a post-supper mix of Marvin Gaye, Amel Larrieux, Van Hunt and Amy Winehouse. For lunch I had B.B. King and Jimi Hendrix; The Thrill was definitely in the Red House :)

reading:

Recently finished Andrei Makine's "The Woman Who Waited", which was good, but I'm in writing mode now - commercial - I have to finish some articles I've been asked to write.

birthday, no blues

my roman-symmetrical birthday came and i felt no blues - except for the moment i stopped to remember how marvin gaye died on my 10th birthday. i even wrote a haiku in the morning - a sign that my zen is maturing:

barrage of goosebumps
a corporeal down payment
for afternoon sun

otherwise, all goes well in California. i visited a remarkable middle school, Nimitz in Huntington Park, CA as part of the university's outreach programme and had the fullest day ever - from 7:25 until 15:13 reading poetry, running workshops, answering questions - i was completely hoarse when i got home. but, to balance that i had ice cream yesterday - cold stone creamery in long beach, CA - it was sooo good (see their website for pictures :)). i made my own mix of banana/coffee ice cream with pecan nuts, almonds and caramel, with the thickest crunchiest waffle ever

and who said we have to age gracefully? here's to 33 going on 3