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Try Kissing God

included in New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Saba)

Afua Ansong

Akashic Books

Cover art by Tariku Shiferaw

Purchase:

  • Akashic Books

Afua Ansong’s poetry is a walk through history, and in these poems she is a griot, singing to us of things we’ve lost. We are, she sings, lucky to be alive at a time like this, and we are blessed and lifted into her poems as she leads us. We are privileged to be on this journey with her. We are walking home.

Romeo Oriogun, from the preface

GYE NYAME: receive god/if not for god

Gye in Akan
suggests an offering;

to have someone
at the receiving end,

to desire to let go,
completely,

often assuming
trust exists

which is Gyi
die, which sounds

often like Gye de—
take and eat—

someone cooks
a meal, palatable or not,

boiled yams
with okro stew,

male crabs, cow hide,
perhaps, gives

it to you in a clean bowl,
food that may turn

your intestines outside in
or clean your red

throat. You lick your lips
and thank your tongue.

But how do you take
God—Gye Nyame

—unless they mean to say
except for God.

For Nyame cannot be chewed
on like the bones of a quail

or kept in the palm
like sweat.

Afua Ansong
Try Kissing God by Afua Ansong Download Image
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