Poetry Marks Writers Night

Accra,(Greater Accra) 3 Nov. Thirteen renowned local and international poets and novelists last night treated an audience of diplomats, students and the general public to inspirational and thought- provoking poems and folkloric songs. With a variety of sounds, sentiments and ideas, they played on the emotions and thoughts of the audience by reciting in Ga, Twi, English, French, Portuguese and Arabic, on the second night of the first Pan-African Writers' Association (PAWA) World Poetry Festival. The festival, in connection with the Fifth International African Writers' Day celebration, was organised by PAWA. The poets and novelists were from Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Brazil, the United Kingdom and United States. Their messages centred on love, family planning, the importance of tradition, slavery, racial and gender balance, freedom and the deceptiveness of appearances. Prof. (Emeritus) Kwabena Nketiah, Director of the International Centre for Music and Dance who was the guest of honour, urged contemporary writers to continue from where their predecessors left off by applying elements of old, simple, folkloric poems and songs to modern creative writing. Mr. Atukwei Okai, PAWA Secretary-General, who presided, announced that the association and the National Theatre have decided to make the festival an annual affair. The International African Writers' Day was set aside by the Organisation of African Unity for people to reflect on the importance of African writers and "their role in our destiny".