Ghana Poetry Project

Mariska Taylor-Darko

To watch Mariska Taylor-Darko read "I Love Ghana" go the the YouTube link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkLP6V3C414&feature=channel_page

Mariska Taylor-Darko’s “I Love Ghana” resonates with the same kind of expansiveness as the poems of Walt Whitman. Taylor-Darko’s work celebrates the Ghanaian identity with exuberance and vivid, figurative observation. A mother of two boys, she began writing late in life. She lives in Accra. She describes her thoughts on poetry: “Poetry is one of the most satisfying ways of expressing my innermost feelings and a way ofnarrating and revealing what I as an individual have experienced. I love Poetry and Poets. Poetry in Ghana is now being understood by the young and many more people are coming round to appreciating its value. More could be done to make it widely experienced but I am positive that things will be better.”

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

I Love Ghana
by Mariska Taylor-Darko

From the moment my feet touched the ground
The moment I heard the different sounds,
The heat that hit my face made me know
I'd found my place.
Every trip back to this country of mine
Makes me love it, in a way I can't define.

The different shades of people,
The hustle in the street,
The reckless bus drivers,
The kaya girls in the street.
The food by the roadside,
The colours of the clothes,
The smiles in the faces of young girls
Carrying life giving water in colourful buckets.

The hot early morning sun
The chickens and goats all out to run,
Even the mosquitoes make music before they bite,
The smells in the air,
The sight of children playing without worries
And birds, all around in flight in some kind of hurry.

The music filled with life
The drums beating with powerful might,
The church bells a ringing
The night songs of Christian brethren
The mosque cries a calling
The hi fi's loud and blaring
The crowds always cheering
The markets always bustling.

I love Ghana,
The solidarity when you mourn,
The companionship when you celebrate,
The shouts of good morning from strangers in the street
even when they were late and rushed off their feet.

Oh I love Ghana,
The country of rich culture,
Of Rich laughter,
Of Rich music
Of Rich tradition

I love Ghana,
The food so colourful,
The Palm soup rich red orange,
The Kontomre mysteriously green,
The Shito black as night,
The Gari yellow as the sun,
The Kokonte brown as earth,
How can you feel so blue
With colourful food that will overwhelm you.

I love my country Ghana
People of different cultures
Different tribes,
Different dialects,
Different lives,
All thrown together
In a great pot,
Intertwined like the roots of the neem tree.
Each passing through life like a pothole in the street,
Up down – in out, up down, up down.

I love my country Ghana,
A place with cultures old and new
Make up the national stew
Life surrounded by powerful hardworking women
The matriarchs alive and strong
The ones who continued from times long gone
Their influences always around, like the undercurrents of a river rolling along, never visible but strongly felt once encountered.

I love Ghana
The patience of the people queuing in long lines like millipedes
Lines for busses
Lines to vote
Lines for water
Lines to eat
Moving along with the shuffling of tired feet

I love my country Ghana,
The hustle,
The bustle,
The rhythms of life,
Pulsating along
I can't live without my country Ghana

I love Ghana,
The sea so blue,
Sands so white,
Sun so hot,
Trees green and just right,
If I continue with this love of mine
I'll talk on and on into the night….but

Oh how I love Ghana

You can find previous postings of poets in the archives.

Selected Works

1. Nonfiction

DJ Kool Herc
The first picturebook biography of the founder of rap and hip hop, DJ Kool Herc!

America Dreaming: How Youth Changed America in the 60s
"Phenomenal."–Howard Zinn "Excellent."–New York Times Book Review

Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance
“Harlem Stomp! is a wonderous new book: it celebrates a time, a place, an energy, and a people who refused to be held back and so they created a culture the entire world is still reeling from.”

--George C. Wolfe, writer, director, and producer of the Public Theater, NYC

3. Poetry

Dave the Potter
A picturebook poem describing the life of the slave potter Dave. Illustrated by Bryan Collier.

Contemporary Poetry of New England
“Contemporary Poetry of New England offers a vivid portrait of a region, its colors and smells, its physical and emotional textures, and the people…. It presents a range of poets, few of whom would call themselves a “region poet,” although each has taken to heart in a private way Frost’s haunting dictum: ‘Locality gives art.’”

--from the Introduction

2. Fiction

A Brush with Napoleon
A seventeen-year-old is plucked out of the Grande Armee to sit in place of Napoleon for a portrait of the Emperor by the artist David.

Casa Azul
"I felt like a kid reading every word on the page! I liked the strains of "magic realism" coming through in Frida's house! Children will relate to this very much! The story is charming and reads like a thriller." –Margarita Aguilar, Assisant Curator, El Museo del Barrio

4. Middle Grade Series

Xtreme Mysteries
These kids love extreme sports--snowboarding, skateboarding, rock climbing, wake boarding--and are ready to fight when the right to do their sport is threatened.