Introducing a collection of poetry by quoting lines that are not included in the volume must certainly seem unusual. The poem quoted above, which I personally range among Atukwei Okai’s best love lines, had to be left out of this selection, just like many other compositions, for the simple reason that he has produced so many love poems in his long career. In 1997 he told me: “I got to realize that the most difficult poems to write are love poems and political poems”. The sheer urgency of the troubles besieging the African continent has often led writers and critics to concentrate exclusively on the latter genre, as if the former could be seen only as a frivolous appendage. In 1994 the Ghanaian Ama Ata Aidoo published her latest novel Changes – A Love Story, ironically apologizing for her former declaration that she could never write about lovers in Accra; more recently, another maestro of West African letters, Niyi Osundare, issued Tender Moments – Love Poems (2006). For Okai, the subject is far from being a new direction: from his very first productions, he has always written about love, constantly and unashamedly. Therefore, it does not come as a surprise that, after their much-awaited reprints of Okai’s ground-breaking Oath of the Fontomfrom and Lorgorligi Logarithms (both 2005), Ghana Publishing Corporation have published this focused collection of works by the author, Freedom Symphony – Selected and New Love Poems. ‘Focused’ does not imply ‘excluding’: the pages of this volume exhibit all the facets love assumes in Okai’s poetry, pointing at the richness of love’s implications, at the far-reaching range of its web, at the absurdity of fencing it within the trivial moments of human existence.

Introduction to "Freedom Symphony"

DEANDREA, Pietro
2008-01-01

Abstract

Introducing a collection of poetry by quoting lines that are not included in the volume must certainly seem unusual. The poem quoted above, which I personally range among Atukwei Okai’s best love lines, had to be left out of this selection, just like many other compositions, for the simple reason that he has produced so many love poems in his long career. In 1997 he told me: “I got to realize that the most difficult poems to write are love poems and political poems”. The sheer urgency of the troubles besieging the African continent has often led writers and critics to concentrate exclusively on the latter genre, as if the former could be seen only as a frivolous appendage. In 1994 the Ghanaian Ama Ata Aidoo published her latest novel Changes – A Love Story, ironically apologizing for her former declaration that she could never write about lovers in Accra; more recently, another maestro of West African letters, Niyi Osundare, issued Tender Moments – Love Poems (2006). For Okai, the subject is far from being a new direction: from his very first productions, he has always written about love, constantly and unashamedly. Therefore, it does not come as a surprise that, after their much-awaited reprints of Okai’s ground-breaking Oath of the Fontomfrom and Lorgorligi Logarithms (both 2005), Ghana Publishing Corporation have published this focused collection of works by the author, Freedom Symphony – Selected and New Love Poems. ‘Focused’ does not imply ‘excluding’: the pages of this volume exhibit all the facets love assumes in Okai’s poetry, pointing at the richness of love’s implications, at the far-reaching range of its web, at the absurdity of fencing it within the trivial moments of human existence.
2008
Freedom Symphony: Selected and New Love Poems
Ghana Publishing Company
xviii
xxvii
9789964104597
Ghana; Okai; poesia anglofona
P. Deandrea
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2318/57542
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