Haiku and Other Poems from Kenya

By Odiedo Stephen

To the dead of the 2007-2008 Election Violence in Kenya. HAIKU AND OTHER POEMS FROM KENYA is a memorial, a monument of remembrance to them - Kenya's forgotten dead. Ten years later there is no acknowledgement of their deaths, their suffering, their loss. HAIKU AND OTHER POEMS FROM KENYA is a monument to the memory of those Kenyans who died because they voted in the 2007 Elections. In their memory, HAIKU AND OTHER POEMS FROM KENYA is a memorial to these dead – those who died for the crime of casting their vote in Kenya’s election.

To Yusuf, valiant Father: You parried the Sword of the Angel of Death and sailed the mystique barque beyond the rage of Duat.

And for Woudd Khreduonkh, for he it is who first unveiled the wisdom

And for Akaatch. She of the gifted cleared-eyed mystic gaze for She is Akaatch, She who gifted the gift.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odiedo Stephen
• Release date: Sep 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386949473

Odiedo Stephen

As a poet, playwright, essayist and novelist my writing dramatizes individuals confronting the fearsome might of the almighty African state in 3rd Millennium Africa. This is the fearful drama of lives violently torn apart on the urban African landscape – lives caught at the crossroads of modern Africa. I write on the tragic drama of lives cast adrift by the death of an anchoring ancient tradition killed by the triumphant march of the fearsome African state. AFRAHA https://books2read.com/u/mdWjZl  is the drama of lives dominated by the tragic irony that the almighty African state, the new secular god welcomed with so much hope and fanfare at independence in the last millennium, is now this fearsome monster devouring all: the “enemies of the state.” As the ironic “withering of the state” gathers pace, uprooted Africans are rushing back into the past to resurrect a monstrous version of a long rejected tradition – shattering lives outcast from tradition and targeted as “enemies” by a vengeful remorseless African state unrestrained neither by tradition (discredited) nor by constitutional law (elitist, effete, ineffectual against the state).   My play TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE https://books2read.com/u/bpjyrX was the 1st Prize Award winner of the DAILY NATION NEWSPAPER 1995 playwriting competition. My plays have been shortlisted on BBC African Performance and BBC International Playwriting Competition. OSIRIS OF THE SLUMS - submitted to the BBC International Playwrights Competition was a finalist for the 1999 BBC International Competition. Since  my play TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE  https://books2read.com/u/bpjyrX won the 1st Prize Award in the DAILY NATION NEWSPAPER playwriting competition I have continued to write poems, plays and novels thanks to the favour of the Muse herself, IMANNA of Splendour. I thank flame-haired Imanna Goddess for her kindnness.

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