Let me

Should I use my pen or lips to talk about the things that trigger me? And if I talk will you be able to listen and discern? But why is that my gender intentionally creeps and mocks at me? Maybe I should be silent like a dead bell but How am I going to change…

The Man We Married

They say good girls go bad ‘cause bad guys don’t treat them right A good woman is as scarce as a dog’s tears And I remember Marriage was never meant to be a fight but a period to garnish our lives I hate that I once loved but now I detest But please don’t judge…

Born To Gain or To Suffer

Grandmother! Our sage of our grandmother gathered us Beneath the big oak tree On a very beautiful night She began to sing: Born to gain or Born to suffer Born to gain or Born to suffer She began to utter to us: Great men are sons of good men Whose hearts are walls Weak men…

The Hunt

Previously on the search for a better man You’ve done me no good I should thank my lucky stars I only spent 3 years on you I was once helpless without you And now I feel like I’ve lost half my life trying to play checkers when I should’ve been playing chess I should be…

The wife of the born-again Christian husband in Kampala

The faithful wife of a born-again Christian husband is a baffled woman. She will slap her cheeks with a Bible So that she doesn’t laugh at the jokes of a pastor. After all her husband is supposed to provide all the humor that is necessary. She will hold her aching thighs together and pray for…

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…

I Am a Woman

When I was little I desired to be a woman A very alluring woman Like a lovely violet To love and be loved O! I imagined.   Now I am a woman What more can I inquire? Am I thrilled? Am I loved? Am I myself? Who cares anyway? I’ve learnt to be a woman…

My son Nok

You turn your head away“He is my son”, I say“He was taken out of my grip”, I sayHe learnt how to shoot with a gun. He shot from village to villageenemies we all becamelapena leaves couldn’t hide uswe were handed blankets, beans and poshointernally displaced we became. Then I heard he was dead.“He is my…

Sponging

Maybe you will be a chronicle that none reads Except the one who makes the entry Or you will be a Facebook post Few will skim through Their fingers automated To click the like button. I don’t know and cannot tell And don’t care what you will turn out to be Because all I need…

Poetra Ama Asantewa Diaka

Poetra Ama Asantewa Diaka is as a young and combative Ghanaian artist, living between the African country and the US. She doesn’t want to be boxed into the definition of “poet” or “writer” – she rather describes herself as a “storyteller“, since the term “encompasses all the ways she can tell a story” – as…