Laban Carrick Hill

The Ghana Poetry Project
Featured Poets: Crystal Tettey and Black

Watch Crystal Tettey "There Are Still Kids" and then Black riff on the refrain from the poem on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g1m2KrqPPE

The two performances by Crystal Tettey and Black offer a fascinating interaction and collaboration between two poetic sensibilities. At first blush, one might think that the Ghanaian Spoken Word Poet Black was mocking Tettey, but in actuality he is paying tribute to her and her art by taking up the refrain from her poem “There Are Still Kids” and expanding on it. This kind of collaborative performance occurs all the time in Ghana. No official or public ceremony occurs with it being in some way undermined, challenged, engaged, mocked or any number of responses by clowns and minstrels. The way Black responds to Tettey’s poem resonates these dense cultural complexities.

Crystal Tettey is a young Ghanaian poet and artist who believes that the onus is on fellow artists and educational institutions to revive the interest of Ghanaians in the literary arts.
She is currently a working with a gender-advocacy group known as the Women Peacemakers Program (WPP). She is fluent in English, French and Russian as well as in 2 native Ghanaian languages Ga and Twi. Her Poetry is inspired by personal sentiments, real life situations, and social issues.

Black is a spoken word poet, performance artist and impresario who is the producer of a performance poetry television show on the Africa One station.

The Ghana Poetry Project is a new effort to promote the poetry of Ghana and its poets in Ghana and around the world.

Here is Crystal Tettey’s marvelous poem that she reads in the video:

THERE ARE STILL KIDS
In a world of adult policies
There are still kids
Where milk is left to curd, then sold
There are still kids
Where wombs are shattered
There are still kids

Where an arm is the price of a meal
Where a meal is the price of an arm
There are still kids

Where power outages deny us TV
There are still kids
Where solitude is safe, fun is sorry
There are still kids
On a playground of mines
There are still kids
At peace conferences that echo war
There are still kids

In a world where adults vote
There are still kids
In schools silenced by artillery
There are still kids
In homes emptied by bombs
There are still kids
Our land cracks at her sides
There are still kids


You can find previous postings of poets in the archives.