HCSHR 6:13 - Adjei Agyei-Baah, Tales of the Kite

 

Adjei Agyei-Baah, Tales of the Kite .. haiku. Buttonhook Press, 2023 (an imprint of OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters). 72 pages

https://ojalart.com/wp-content/uploads/Agyei-Baah.Kite_.version.2.1.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2Ra4TSQm-fK_BBzgidhzL_OwFyv_G5CCMjXwzK8o9CVDIMoEnhWyWtoz0

 

reviewed by Maxianne Berger

 

I am always fascinated and surprised when a poet weaves an entire collection of haiku around a single topic, and Adjei Agyei-Baah’s Tales of the Kite is one more example of this type of tour de force. The sheer versatility of the theme and the variety of moments it lends itself to are a revelation—certainly about the flexibility of a thinking, creative mind.

 

There are 102 poems in all, numbered and printed two per page. I add here that this collection is bilingual: English and Twi, the language of Ghana, and for interested readers, Agyei-Baah provides a pronunciation key at the beginning of the book

 

Haiku 24 simultaneously shows imagination and reality.

 

stretched wings—
a kite carrying the sky
nowhere

 

kaet a watrɛ ne ntaban mu
kukuru wiase tesɛ nea
ɔredekɔ baabi

 

In a haiku featuring his daughter (72), we are reminded of how human beings have always tried to explain their surroundings based on current knowledge of the world.

 

                           ducking kite
my daughter asks if the sky
has bumps

 

kaet a ɛrebobɔbɔ nemu ase
me ba bisa sɛ ewiem wɔ kwantempɔnso
agyigyina nsaem

 

Even politics can be an aspect of a kite haiku (39).

 

still waving on top
of the lost incumbent’s billboard—
a stuck kite

 

kɔso di ahim
    wɔ ɔmanpanin dada nfonin so
          kaet a woaka adwaam

 

Agyei-Baah does not restrict himself to three-line haiku. There are monostichs and couplets—whatever best serves the poem at hand.

 

the kite master conducting the winds                               (46)

 

kaet tofoɔ a ɔredi mframa
adanedane

 

 

the kite’s wingspan─
                         the smile of a child                                       (57)

 

abɔfra sereɛ—
kaet a wabue ne ntaban mu

 

At end of day, Agyei-Baah’s final haiku subtly recalls Icarus to me, and the age-old desire of humans to fly.

 

twilight...
a returning kite
grazes the sun

 

owitɔeɛ
kaet ɛfiri wiem reba
twitwiri owia

 

The Introduction by David McMurray includes a perception about Tales of the Kite that I feel truly sums up the reading experience: “Adjei’s kite is personified with an ego and eyes, and the ability to embrace, learn, tease, conduct, dream, meditate and even curl up with its reader” (p. 9). And because this collection is online, the invitation to curl up with Agyei-Baah’s kites is easy to accept.

 *****

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