Welcome to Book Showcase & Author Interview!
Today, it gives me great pleasure to present a very dear friend, prolific poet, blogger and a new Author from Ghana, Celestine Nudanu.
Celestine, a frequent visitor to my blog and she is out with her debut novel titled: HAIKU RHAPSODIES ~ Verses From Ghana.
I have been a keen visitor to Celestine's Blog where she shares her three line poems I find totally captivating and heart-warming.
Celestine, a frequent visitor to my blog and she is out with her debut novel titled: HAIKU RHAPSODIES ~ Verses From Ghana.
I have been a keen visitor to Celestine's Blog where she shares her three line poems I find totally captivating and heart-warming.
Author Interview
with Celestine
Hello Celestine, welcome to Author Interview. Please tell us a bit
about you, your family and background.
(Smiling) Thank you Stella
for this wonderful opportunity to share a little bit of myself and my poetry collection, Haiku Rhapsodies with
your lovely followers.
As you know, I'm Celestine
Nudanu from Ghana, West Africa. I'm married to my childhood
sweetheart and I'm blessed with three boys. Oh did I forget to say that I also
hold a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Theatre Studies, and a Masters
degree in International Relations from the University of Ghana, Legon.
Congratulations on your new release. Why did you decide to publish a
book?
Thank you Stella. Hmm,
that is a dicey question. Frankly, I don't know. I just decided to publish my haiku collection and bam I got going,
with lots of faith behind me.
Celestine, please share the journey from conception to the
publication of your new book.
Like I said earlier, I
just made up my mind to publish and then I just moved. I always tell my friends here in Ghana
that I moved by faith. I had no idea where
I was going, but my faith in God and what I was doing kept me going.
Over the years when I
started blogging in 2012, I had acquired a number of followers who are haiku poets. I started writing haiku on my blog
based on daily or weekly prompts or
themes posted on the various blogs I follow. And then I realised that I had fallen in love with the three
lined Japanese poetry form of
seventeen syllables or less. The brevity, the simplicity, and its focus on nature or aspects of it appeased
so much to me.
I must confess that I'm no
expert and I've learned over the years to improve my skill. I'm still a work in
progress.
So, when I decided to
publish, I compiled the best haiku on my blog, wrote news ones based on the Afriku
concept and sent them over to well known haiku
experts I had come to know through blogging, for editing. (I'll tell you in a bit about the Afriku). Copies of the draft collection were also sent
to three haiku experts in Ghana
here for their critique and comments.
After the back and forth
of editing, re-writing and more editing and -re-writing, the proof was ready for publication.
Now the Afriku,
a termed coined by my fellow Ghanaian
haiku poet, Adjei Agyei Baah, simply refers to haiku are
haiku of African origin, focusing on
her rich images, rhythms, and unique
settings peculiar to the culture and heritage
of Africa. Afriku in its simplest forms, also capture thrilling
African moments in
nature.
Where do you get the inspiration for your poems?
Straight away I will say I
get my inspiration from God. From the
beauty He created all around us, nature
and well, situations.
What would be the best thing a reviewer
will say about your new release?
(Laughing) Ow, I'm sure a reviewer will say
Haiku Rhapsodies is a collection of exquisite three-lined poems
written from the heart; with a lyrical flair
underlying the
brevity that this collection of haiku has mastered
What’s your one sentence pitch for your book?
Unputdownable!
What else are you passionate about? And name one thing you are bad
at doing?
I'm a passionate person by
nature. I feel so strongly for anything that touches my heart. But I guess what is closest to my heart is to set
up a shelter or home in the future for the sexually abused children in my
country.
What am I bad at?
(laughing) Let's just say I like to procrastinate. I don't fix schedules
too when I'm writing. Even if I do I'm not able to stick to it.
I pray you achieve your dream for setting up the shelter. Our readers are interested in your favourite food & drink.
Ow Stella, I may have to
disappoint our readers here because I developed diabetes only last year and I'm on a diet. A diet in Ghana can
be a difficult thing, I tell you because
the staple diet here and the way of living make the whole food thing monotonous, with no variety. So at the moment I
have no favourite food. I eat what
is appropriate for my condition.
As for drink, I take only
water now. (laughing)
What’s the most embarrassing thing you
have done?
(laughing) None readily comes to mind,
seriously.
Share your favourite quote.
In explaining my passion for
Haiku to my friends in Ghana where incidentally I'm the first to publish haiku in hard print, I often like to
quote Roxi St Clair, a fine blogger and poet.
And I quote 'Poetry cannot be
caged like a bird - it must unfold its
wings and fly'
butter on
toast
the taste of
you
at breakfast
morning dew
on yellow buds
blooming dandelions
how long
to wait for
your return
the mangoes
bloom
the bight
in flames
fireflies
freezing
cold
the warm
breath
of dying love
Endorsement
Celestine Nudanu's Haiku Collection is what
I choose to call 'minimalist expressionism' with an African flavour. Not only
does the poet in true haiku tradition express so much in cryptic, compact and
concise language, but she also vests each piece with subliminal artistry. As
the eyes navigate the pages, each poem tells its own story in micro seconds,
lingering in the mind as it connects with the next poem. At the end of Haiku
Rhapsodies, one is nourished by a corpus that evokes pleasure beyond the
printed page.
I must emphasise that it is not easy to
take a foreign art form, domesticate it and turn it around into a thing of
beauty the way Celestine has done.
For those who like to enjoy poetry with a
dose of the exotic, and indeed for all who enjoy micro poetry, Haiku Rhapsodies is just the right
tonic.
Thank you for stopping by. Please share your comments, so Celestine knows you stopped by. It also gives me great pleasure to read your views.
You remain unforgettable,
Love
Stella
Flirty & Feisty Romance
Our promise...is to deliver an intensely emotional experience you'll never forget.
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