Roberta Turkson’s career in poetry started in 2011, as a way to drive the pain off her chest, after failing to fulfil the fondest dream of having her own traditional Ghanaian restaurant in Nashville. “With lots of time on my hands and pain in my heart, I took to writing which turned out to be…
I Lost My Teeth in a Fight
I. My father tries to kill me twice before the age of twelve. both times I’m a tiny thing on a floor. He breaks the branch of a jacaranda tree on my skin and I lose my voice. In both scenarios he screams: I will kill you. In both scenarios, my mother stands by and…
I Don’t Ever Want To Get Married
– I don’t ever want to get married Waking up every morning and seeing mama’s face being painted with high resonant slaps from dad’s palms hurt my soul He’d wrap his hands around her neck in preparation to take her life heaven knows he beat the hell out of her My dad doesn’t eat stale…
(Blue) for Sudan
(1) Clutched my heart a terrible invasive grief. One of my father’s calling my skin its own, as it shed cries of mercy. Of a divine pardon. Of an outpouring rahma* to reach the lives lost to the march. Mourning settled in the veins. Of a country that bled in each corner, wounded dreams of…
This is not a feminist poem
This is not a feminist poem This is not contorted metaphors with neither punch line nor chorus This is not a feminist poem It is a woman learning to trade possessions before her lover takes his last breath. She will never get the chance to say goodbye because those final hours are one match-point away…
Jean Rhys
I think of the divided self of Jean Rhys in Dominica, her invisible self in London, and the depth, scope, scale of her writing: What was achievable in her lifetime is achievable now, the winter’s tale of Jean Rhys, and her tragedy of errors, of losing a child, and her failed marriages. She was a…
Forgive to be Forgiven
If forgiveness had a formula I would pursue a whole course just to master it. It’s not that I’m in love with the whole concept of forgiveness But I need to learn it and become it. See I’ve been searching for forgiveness for a while now. Singing praises and turning my life into worship just…
Nyeri
I almost became that man’s second wifeI twisted my underwear here and thereI hynoptised myself that he was the oneI always thought of him. Whenever he sent me a text message“I suit you like the cover of a jerican”I would swing my hips to his tuneHe was my man. I waited for him at the…
I Am
I am Mixed Race, Half Caste, Half Breed and Colored. Any way you look at it His blood mixed with her blood Mixed with their blood To make our blood. And now all that blood runs through my children’s Tiny beautiful veins. We are the New bloods. African Bloods. We were colonized and reorganized yet…
Threshold (For my sisters rejecting FGM)
I am seventeen The moon giggles shyly and caresses the skies Sipi Falls cascade in a wave of excitement. I waltz with the falls downstream A tinge of warmth engulfs me My feet rub… My future. The village awakes It is the rite season The search… She descends with a knife I grip my tears…