Chinua Achebe: A Poet of Global Encounters

A rare peek into his later life..

Jesse Weaver Shipley's avatarAfrica is a Country (Old Site)


The first time I met Chinua Achebe I had just started teaching at Bard College, where I had been hired as Director of Africana Studies. I saw Chinua one evening at a campus event and nervously approached to introduce myself. I did not expect his humor or his humility. Instead of exchanging a quick word or two, he engaged me in a long conversation about the state of Africana studies and my research in Ghana. I tentatively began to seek out his company and realized that, while he was one of the most important living writers in the world, he was also lonely living in upstate New York. Over the next six years I spent as much time as I could at the house on the Bard campus where Chinua and his wife Christie lived. Sometimes I was invited but eventually I just started showing up; for food and conversation…

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Bright Anita

The carvings you bring finds my bonds of paper ever so well. Hence I shall stop my wrong ways to find my right ones with you. The silence we bring helps build the bridge between sweet and slow. So let’s roll into the carriage of pumpkins and silver wheels. Most people always find new ways to find our fault. The danger we show gets the race started;

Melodies of solace.

Crisp like rice

Reddened sauce

Peppered layers

Showered hinges

An uncollected perspective

A growing spirit

A generous smiling

Lasting after the embrace

Time to sweet drive

Long; till we see a glow

Classic Cocoa

Sundown writing

Burnt out living

Chimed up sayings

Polished crew

Eyes looped well

Packed up temptations

Lucky Lotto

Eleven goes the chapter

Sharing pennies

Stocking blue jams

Washing left overs

The circle of hustle

The gift of prayer

An end meets the ends of living

Early Morning 20

Slain pieces

Aspiring guns

Forgotten flights

Remembered shots

ejo, but can we stop the brutality

The holes in my cabinet do hurt

Blood on soil

Sahara sand

Heavenly dew

Rest; ever so light

dedicated to the 20 souls lost on 30/03/2013

Act II: Love Intro

Back to break

The lace of hatred

The spade of choice

Abundant for you

The festival is non-stop

Remember, you are alive to shout louder

Act I: Be

Chanced to be blessed

Blessed to be earthed

Easy to drink off the forgotten show

The state when the mind resides

Through breath comes conception

The side of the risen.

 

 

 

 

Read Act VII: Lots of Love

Also Act III: The Struggles of the Fallen

Act III: The struggles of the fallen

The days we have come to know

The ends we have come to meet

The anger we have grown to recollect

Hunger is real

A gift to use

“The pain is harsh,” said the sun

Sahara burns hot

But, the people keep on walking

Your time in the day

 

Act VII: Lots of Love

Giving dreams from the rainy season

The pinky feelings

Cards of roses

Shoes of Dorothy

Flying to switch the left-over

A new start

“To stay and remain,” I say.

“You break, you pay,” she whispered.

5 New Films to Watch, N°21

Top two : Creation in Exile, and King ME

Tom Devriendt's avatarAfrica is a Country (Old Site)


5 new documentaries this week. Crop: Talking About Images is a film directed by Marouan Omara and Johanna Domke. The film, quoting its website, “reflects upon the impact of images in the Egyptian Revolution and puts it in relation to the image politics of Egypt’s leaders. Instead of showing footage from the revolution, the film is shot entirely in the power domain of images — Egypt’s oldest and most influential state newspaper Al Ahram.” From the top-level executive office down to the smallest worker, the documentary follows a photo journalist who missed the revolution due to a hospital stay. Here’s an excerpt: 

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Simple World

The water rose till the glass that held it in broke into smaller pieces. The current had exploded and those caught in the waves were left to curse their luck. The lucky ones stared hard, and without any reason they let loose of vile words and curses. They threw their offense at the wounded ones without an offer to help. “Why should we?” Some of them questioned. “These filthy souls asked for the dirt.”

So the pain again receives no answers. The turmoil most mirrors suffer; always receiving accusing stares from the unassuming onlooker. Out of body, without hesitation the particle of mind will find its source. Believe it or not, the same goes for those who wish to drink from the fountain others reject.

No money to ask for a date. The broke man will use the words of strength or the strength in words to reach the heart of the red star. Never question the moth who buzzes close to the flame without papers. The sign says out but the arrow puts inwards. Laziness might be a disease but hard-work is hardly infectious.

The walk of confidence shows discipline and the slash of an angry man shouts victorious. Remember, the soul will cry but the body will remain for a week or so. The demands of the hardly-working man causes the less-able to always stay in comfortability. No wrong, as long as your own way works.

The embrace from the screams of the never visited place called Venetian. The lung dries up from always saying what the bucket can handle. There! Nothing is left for this part, so onto another.

Coincidentally, the day came with full force; blazing bright. The flight to the top of the happy rhymes was rejected by those who feared the stars. The light all hope to find is in the darkness that most fear to live in. No one fears the cloud-dust up high, but we all fear the shadow, whose only desire is to reveal the unknown.

Though my dream ends here, I still have nightmares bright in the day. The advice is to go to that place where rejection came in abundance. Unlike what they say, the lessons in life is abundant and very unapparent. In darkness, we must first find that tunnel and then maybe later the light. And to think, life was so simple back then when peaches were extremely delicious.

My dreams though.