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.

Notes From a Warm Place

So, the people who invited me to read in Southern & Northern California have been sending me very lovely comments from the audience members and, I have pulled them together into a 14-line collage in celebration. My trip so far as been incredibly reaffirming - if I ever doubted that readers just love literature and want to be challenged and exposed to new worlds, my doubts have been blown away... Here's the collage/bricolage/commentage:

The poem he read to us which paralleled playing
a piano with playing basketball). I thought it was both
thoughtful and creative. Not only was he an attractive writer,
but his poetry was amazing, the perfect

antidote to an otherwise grinding week. His reading draws me in
and paints pictures; the way that he speaks of togetherness,
in terms of "we" instead of "I" says a lot about his character.
He speaks with such rhythm. I loved Nii's reading;

definitely my favorite guest speaker. The way he read
his novel was almost as if he was singing a song.
I love the way he incorporated language in his book.
He has such a wonderful spirit; I thoroughly enjoyed hearing his work.

I'm just about to order his book from Amazon.
I wish he could come back and read to us again!

The Bochum Disaster

Taken from: http://discussions.ghanaweb.com/viewtopic.php?t=111633&sid=c8cb1fc3aacc06cbef051326d9d6aec4

and

http://de.footbo.com/Teams/Ghana/History

The Bochum Disaster: 14th April 1993

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWIcxPMD7sw

On the night of 14 April 1993, Ghana’s senior National Team played then 1990 FIFA World Cup defending Champions Germany away at the Ruhrstadion, Bochum, Germany in an International friendly match. Parading then 3-time African Footballer of the Year Abedi Pele, back-to-back German Bundesliga Goal-king Anthony Yeboah among others, Ghana shocked the World Champions by taking the lead through Prince Polley in the 44th min., in front of 37,000 home fans. They took the 1-0 lead over Germany into half-time. Germany stormed back in the 2nd half and scored 3 quick goals in one minute - the 70th minute alone! - through Ulf Kirsten 70', Stefan Effenberg 70', Jürgen Klinsmann 70'. With the Ghanaian team in disarray, the World Champions added 3 more goals in the 82’, 86‘, and 88’, for a final score of 1-6.

This match is etched in Ghana’s football history as the worst defeat. It is believed that after the first half of this match the Ghanaian team had a disagreement over the sharing of the match bonus, and this is considered to have led to the downfall of the team in the match.

TEAM SHEET
Edward Ansah,
Tony Baffoe,
Stephen Frimpong Manso (Stanley Arboah 66'),
Emmanuel Armah,
Ali Ibrahim (Yaw Preko 81'),
Isaac Asare,
Abedi 'Pelé' Ayew
Yaw Acheampong,
Charles Akonnor (Sam Adjei 52'),
Anthony Yeboah,
Prince Polley Opoku.

the california season

It seems like I've carried a bit of the rain with me to California. It's rained twice; quite heavily yesterday in the tropical style - violent and brief. I'm teaching/in residence in the English Department of the California State University in LA, but the Department is housed in the Engineering and Technology building. As soon as I got to it I felt at home - the story of my life; an engineer/scientist turned writer. Anyway, it's been good so far: I've been in one editorial meeting for sentence, the in-house literature magazine, the introductory class for creative non-fiction and I've had a couple of one-on-ones with students - more on the way today. I haven't had a bad time with writing; I think I'm being fairly productive - my aim is to get the beginnings of a definitive poetry collection done before I leave the US, so I'm doing it a day at a time. Yesterday, I settled on a concept for grouping my poems so now I'm going to group them, edit and weed out the crap, then send a rough draft out to my agent. In the meantime, in between times :) I've been writing a couple of haiku. These three celebrate nightfall in cali and the fact that I've seen no energy saving bulbs around...

#1
rare as brown flowers
fluorescent bulbs crouch in packs
the earth flames at night

#2
homicidal lights
fret like insomniac starlings
warning signs in neon

#3
leaves fade, bulbs burn slow
lights gleam like knives in alleys
the world mugged by night

what i'm reading/listening to

listening:
Jimi Hendrix on my laptop

reading:
Other people's poems - editing really....