The Ghana Poetry Project

Featured Poet: Novisi Dzitrie reading “Ol’ Driver Grand-Papa”

To watch this video go to YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1GS2B6M_Cw

Novisi Dzitrie comments on his own work and on poetry in Ghana:

As a young poet I feel there is a generational gap so far as the literary scene and the poetry scene for that matter in Ghana is concerned in that we have not consciously or otherwise followed the exploits of trailblazers like Ama Atta Aidoo and Ayikwe Armah.

This I believe poses a great challenge for the young writers in Ghana today. I recall the joy I had when I first had a short-story of mine published in ‘The Mirror’, a Ghanaian state newspaper in the year 2000. That was for me the jolt that made me take writing a bit more seriously but I’ve drifted mainly to poetry and I always can’t describe how I feel when I finish a poem since the day I did the very first poem I wrote ‘by accident’.

I love art works and I’m always encouraged by how far the human imagination can be stretched. Poetry presents such an opportunity and for me it’s always a magic experience to allow myself to connect deeply with flowing thoughts!

Biography

Novisi Dzitrie believes he’s one of the many lives ever to walk this earth. Just one; there are a countless number of others. Novisi was born in Kakata, Liberia but has lived in Ghana since the age of four.

Novisi as poet discovered his poetic talent 'by accident' in 1999. His short stories have been published in The Mirror, a popular weekly Ghanaian newspaper and The Forum, the University of Ghana SRC news magazine. He has also written one unpublished radio drama. Novisi participated as a poet in the 2004 Crossing-Borders Programme for Young Writers organized by the British Council for writers across Africa.

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

Ol’ Driver Grand-Papa
By Novisi Dzitrie

Ol’ driver Grand-Papa

Wouldn’t you take
This rickety lorry of yours
Off the road?

‘cos it’s done many a rocking to the bone!

I know you want to keep running the road still
STILL…
Like there’s no tomorrow
But isn’t it just time far past time
TIME
That you heeded the signs of SunDown
Retired and took a shower
To soothe the aching muscles and bones… ?

Would you?
Ol’ driver Grand-Papa!

Wouldn’t you take
This wobbly lorry of yours
Off the road?

‘Cos it’s done many a million KO blows to the bone!

No…
You must not stay out lazy on the road
No...
Not that never ending hustling and bustling stretch of Trotro
All the way from Bubiashie to Kaneshie
Toa ‘one-gallon’ refuel stop
Along the sea-breeze of Ga-Manshie
And on to Osu, La, Teshie, Nungua
All the way to Lashibi

You limbs cannot carry you any further
No…
Not the squeaking axles of that aged lorry of yours
No…
Not those bumpy wheels!
No…

My Ol’ Driver Grand-Papa!

Isn’t it time…TIME just far past time
That you heeded the signs of SunDown
Retired and packed this tired lorry of yours
In the front of your abode
So it will remain a story to be told
To the generations
Of your grand-children, great-grand-children
And great-great-great-grand-children

That this was the ‘bone-shaker’
That Ol’ Driver Grand-papa once drove!

And it did many a rocking to the bone!

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.