Book Review! Book Review!! Book Review!!!

Titles: (1) Elements (trilogy of poems)

Price: GH¢7.00

GH¢7.00(2) The Coffee Shop (a novel)

(a novel)Price: GH¢10.00

GH¢10.00Author: Alex Agyei-Agyiri

Alex Agyei-Agyiri

Publishers: Letters and Marks Pre publishing

Letters and Marks Pre publishingAvailable at: Legon Bookshop

Legon Bookshop

Reviewer:

(1) (trilogy of poems)GH¢7.00(a novel)GH¢10.00Alex Agyei-AgyiriLetters and Marks Pre publishingLegon BookshopN. Adu Kwabena-Essem

(1) Elements

I had a very serious romance with poetry in elementary school. It vanished when I lost the desire for education because I couldn’t take advantage of a full government scholarship to attend St Augustine’s Secondary School.

My mother and her younger sister couldn’t afford the registration fee — of £5.

Up to that time, I loved poetry so much that I was invited to recite a poem or two at entertainment programmes in school or, sometimes, in town. I even managed to memorise and recite the six stanzas of Alexander Selkirk’s Soliloquy by reading it through a couple of times. But those were the days! And that’s a story that will be told some other time!

In the end, I was prevailed upon to go back to school, but I never regained my love of poetry and other things that gave me joy while growing up.

Part of my love of poetry is explained by the fact that I grew up interested in court language which, at its best, is invariably, profound, pithy, imaginative and exact. Poetry, which is a composition in verse, characterised by the imaginative treatment of experience and a condensed use of language is, in many, but by no means all, ways akin to court language.

My interest in poetry began to revive somewhat through the efforts of my close friend and mentor, the late Mr P.K.K.Quaidoo, who was a poet of no mean repute. I can’t say he managed to bring my enjoyment of poetry anywhere near what it was in my school days, but I am always on the lookout for a Ghanaian poet who can really rekindle my love for poetry. Alas, this remains a vain search.