Nii ayikwei parkes poems about friendship

British performance poet, writer, publisher and broadcaster (born )

Nii Ayikwei Parkes (;^[2] born 1 April ),^[3] born in the United Kingdom to parents from Ghana, where he was raised, is a performance poet, writer, publisher and sociocultural commentator.

He is one of 39 writers aged under 40 from sub-Saharan Africa who in April were named as part of the Hay Festival's prestigious Africa39 project.^[4] He writes for children under the name K.P. Kojo.^[5]

Biography

Born in the UK while his parents were studying there, Nii Parkes was raised from the age of three or four in Ghana,^[6] where he was educated at Achimota School.

His first editorial role was in working on his school magazine, The Achimotan, and he went on to co-found, at the age of 17, filla! magazine, Ghana's first student-run national magazine.^[7] Parkes subsequently studied in England at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Nii ayikwei parkes poems about friendship and life He was the resident poet at Borders bookstores, where he hosted the monthly open mic at Charing Cross Road between and Nii Parke's Website. Biography [ edit ]. Selected bibliography [ edit ].

While there, he emerged as a performance poet and was also a member of the Black Writers' Group of Commonword.^[3] He was children's poet-in-residence at the Brighton Festival in ^[8]

A veteran of several poetry festivals, and former poet-in-residence at the Poetry Café in London, he has performed poetry in the United Kingdom, Europe, Ghana and the United States and was a Associate Artist-In-Residence with BBC Radio 3.

In , he was British Council writer-in-residence at California State University, Los Angeles,^[9] and became one of the youngest living writers (along with Owen Sheers and Choman Hardi) featured in the Poems on the Underground programme in London with his poem "Tin Roof".^[10]

Parkes runs regular workshops in the UK and set up a Writer's Fund in Ghana to promote writing among the country's youth.^[11] He has recorded two CDs of his spoken-word poetry, Incredible Blues and Nocturne of Phrase, and has published three chapbooks of poetry: eyes of a boy, lips of a man, M is for Madrigal, and the self-published Shorter!,^[12] which was put together to raise money for the Writers' Fund initiative.

He is also the co-founder (in )^[13] and Senior Editor at flipped eye publishing, for whom he compiled fourteen two (editor), Dance the Guns to Silence (co-editor with Kadija Sesay) and x unclassified (co-editor with Tash Aw).

Parkes' short stories can be found in Tell Tales: Volume I (Tell Tales) and The Mechanics' Institute Review (Birkbeck College) and an excerpt from his second fiction manuscript, Afterbirth,^[14] was featured in the New Writing 15 anthology published by Granta Books in June

Also a playwright, his début play Walking Waterfall ran at London’s Almeida Theatre on 30 July and 31 July , as part of the Tiata Fahodzi Tiata Delights season.^[15] The production was directed by Femi Elufowoju Jr., and featured a cast including Jude Akuwudike and Marcy Dolapo Oni.

It later toured in East Anglia.

His debut novel, Tail of the Blue Bird, was published by Jonathan Cape in June , and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Translated into French by Sika Fakambi, it was published as Notre Quelque Part by Éditions Zulma, winning the Prix Baudelaire, Prix Mahogany and Prix Laure Bataillon and being selected by leading literary magazine Lire as the Best First Foreign Book of the year and one of the Top 20 books published in France in ^[16]

An experienced performer of his work, Parkes has appeared at readings all over the world, including the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, New York; the Royal Festival Hall, London; and Java, Paris, and often leads writing and performance workshops.

He was the resident poet at Borders bookstores, where he hosted the monthly open mic at Charing Cross Road between and

He became BookTrust's online writer-in-residence in ^[17][18] In , he became a writer-in-residence for the charity First Story.^[19] He also ran the African Writers' Evening^[20] series at the Poetry Café in Covent Garden.

In , Parkes represented Ghana at Poetry Parnassus, the largest international poetry festival in the UK, held at London's Southbank Centre in conjunction with the London Olympics.^[21][22][23] In autumn , the University of Tübingen welcomed him to that year's Writers' Lectureship together with Taiye Selasi, Priya Basil and Chika Unigwe, all of them writers representing what Selasi calls Afropolitan Literature.

Poems about friendship women Did you hear the market traders hurling prices down the street? All Hallows. How does your editing process work? Selected essays and articles [ edit ].

In –15, Parkes was the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Aberystwyth, Wales.^[24] He was selected as one of Africa's 39 most promising authors under the age of 40 for the World Book Capital Africa39 project in ^[25]

Parkes ran the Creative Writing course at the African University College of Communications (AUCC) in Accra, Ghana,^[16] and sat on the Board of Trustees of pan-African literary initiative Writivism, with fellow writers Zukiswa Wanner, Chika Unigwe, NoViolet Bulawayo, E.

C. Osondu and Lizzy Attree, until ^[26]

Parkes was appointed as the founding director of the Ama Ata Aidoo Centre for Creative Writing (Aidoo Centre), launched in Accra in March , under the auspices of the Kojo Yankah School of Communications Studies at the African University College of Communications (AUCC).^[27][28][29]

He serves on the editorial board of World Literature Today,^[30] is a trustee of the Caine Prize,^[31] and in became Producer of Literature and Talks at the Brighton Festival.^[32] He was chair of judges for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.^[33]

His poetry collection, The Geez, was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, shortlisted for the Walcott Prize, and is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.^[34]

Personal life

Parkes is a descendant of J.

C. E. Parkes (−), the Sierra Leone Creole civil servant, and traces his heritage back to enslaved Africans in Guadeloupe and Jamaica.^[35]

Selected bibliography

Writing by Parkes has appeared in many publications, including Granta, The Guardian, Index on Censorship, International PEN Magazine, The Liberal, The Mechanics' Institute Review, Poetry News, Poetry Review, Sable, Statement (CSULA), Storyteller Magazine, X Magazine and Wasafiri.

Fiction

• Tail of the Blue Bird (novel), Jonathan Cape, ; Vintage, , ISBN&#;
  • Translated into Dutch (by Ronald Cohen) as De blauwe vogel, Q, , ISBN&#;
  • Translated into Japanese (by Kazue Daikoku) as Aoitori no Shippo, Web Press Happa-no-Kofu, , ISBN&#;
  • Translated into French (by Sika Fakambi) as Notre Quelque Part,^[6] Zulma, , ISBN&#;
  • Translated into Spanish (by Magdalena Palmer) as El Enigma del Pájaro Azul, Club Editor, , ISBN&#;
  • Translated into Catalan (by Xavier Pàmies) as L'enigma de l'ocell blau, Club Editor, , ISBN&#;
  • Translated into Estonian (by Heili Sepp) as Sinise linnu saladus, Kultuurileht, , ISBN&#;
• Azúcar (novel), Peepal Tree Press, , ISBN&#;^[36]

Poetry

• eyes of a boy, lips of a man, Flipped Eye Publishing, ; 2nd edition , ISBN&#;
• M is for Madrigal: Seven Poems, tall lighthouse, , ISBN&#;
• The Makings of You, Peepal Tree Press, , ISBN&#;
• The Geez, Peepal Tree Press, , ISBN&#;

Children's literature

As editor

• Fourteen Two: Twenty Eight Love Poems, flipped eye publishing, , ISBN&#;
• With Kadija Sesay, Dance the Guns to Silence: Poems for Ken Saro-Wiwa, flipped eye publishing, , ISBN&#; (includes work by Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Kevin Powell & Jayne Cortez)
• With Tash Aw, X Unclassified, flipped eye publishing, , ISBN&#; (includes work by Naomi Alderman & Daniel Alarcon
• South of South, Peepal Tree Press, , ISBN&#; (includes work by Monica Arac de Nyeko and Junot Díaz)^[37]
• Filigree: Contemporary Black British Poetry, Peepal Tree Press, , ISBN&#; (includes work by Roger Robinson & Tishani Doshi)^[38]

Selected essays and articles

Awards and recognition

References

External links

• Nii Parkes website
• "The Team", flipped eye publishing.
• "D.

  Herrle Tea Interviews - Nii Parkes", ,

• Ben JK Anim-Antwi (Kwesi), "Profile: Nii Ayikwei Parkes", Me Firi Ghana, 12 April
• Will Barrett, "Where It Begins: an interview with Nii Ayikwei Parkes", Poetry School.
• "Nii Ayikwei Parkes" (interview), African Writing Online.