Stolen from Hip Hop

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

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

II

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

the wake of change

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)