Ghanaian Poet, Omama Kidash, Celebrates Women Ahead of Mother’s Day

Omama Kidash, whose real name is Godwin Asare, and also writes under the pseudonym Godwin Kwasi Asare, is a Ghanaian poet, playwright, and currently a teacher of Literature-in-English at the Pentecost Senior High School – Kofridua, in the Eastern Region of Ghana.

Omama Kidash, a member of the Ghana Association of Writers (GAW), was the Second Prize Winner of the coveted Professor Atukwei Okai Prize for Poetry during the 2017 edition of the GAW Literary Awards. In 2016, Kidash won the Second Prizeof the MTN Foundation Best Teacher Award which was organized to celebrate Ghanaian teachers.

Thus far, he has published four books: Dairy of the First Birth Poems, The Peaceful Ghana Project: God Bless Abibiman Ghana (a collection of poems and a play purposely published to campaign for peace towards the 2016 General Election in Ghana), The SORCERESS and Other Plays (an anthology of plays), and Women Don’t Die: Dairy of the Second Birth Poems from Africa (a collection of over three-hundred poems under the captions, The Birth, An African Bell Invokes the Nazarene, Women Don’t Die, Sugarcane, Native Sun, Oxymoron: Life’s Temperature, Environmental Signs, I Am Bleaching Myself Blacker, and Tales from the Palm Wine Tapper’s).

The Labour Ward

Champagne

Popped in pain

To begin the journey of the sixth day –

Oh, what a great day it often is.

Sweat, sobs, screams, raw agony:

A bitterness from the sweetness of Eden’s fruits

A heart rending torture from the joys

Of the Creator’s ordained merriment for the creature.

Somewhere, Adam caresses Eve in Gethsemane

To slow the spear that cuts through

Her mind, her heart and the centre of main events

Before she opens her sesame.

Elsewhere, he chats with friends under a tree,

Waiting for the bearer of the good news –

He raises a calabash to a heroic victory

And takes manly handshakes for making history.

But the woman is the man; a soldier

And if Caesar’s scissors be the usher,

A Ramadan separation with Nightingale’s shrine taboos:

The blood stained manual of the gods of a realm

Tells of her courage.

The fragile one

Who breaks a mother’s egg

Whether unto the naked earth or a golden bed

Is born into a world

And yet grow their bones for the world,

Either to make honey or to brew Marah.

The great heavens hide her destiny.

He must be everybody’s business to receive love and

To give love

Puuush …

She regrets

She curses

She swears.

At last, a cry

Hurray!!!

Here you are

And the pain joins the historical pages.

Whence cometh thou

Little visitor,

Into this undulating world?

Welcome.

Yaa Asantewaa

Yaa Asantewaa

Queen Mother of Ejisu

Who danced before wicked cannons

And still stopped to wipe her sweat unscathed

Fearless Asantewaa

Brave Asantewaa

Mighty woman of valour

And a golden trophy of the Asante Empire

Africa is very proud of a daughter of your make.

Yaa Asantewaa

A symbol of faith and courage

A taproot in the tree of Africa’s identity

And her heritage

You shall forever remain a nipple of

Africa’s breast to feed

Her men and women to fight for

True independence

That does not take morning dictations from

Overseas.

Yaa Asantewaa

A Queen Mother of Africa

Your resilience still speaks to the ears that hear

Your living voice that stirred men into action

Still echoes in the present for our growth.

Our formidable Queen

Mother of great love

Who detested to see her children enslaved

Speak once more to our leaders

Let your famous speech sink into their hearts

And push them to the front line.

Bath them with the herbs of your selfless love

For your grandchildren are independent in words

And true beggars in action

Nothing like the Woman

God blessed the woman

Before He put her on the map.

She was already made

Before Adam took the nap.

I have been around the world

But there is nothing more

On the harps than the woman

Who is the best of all

There are the beautiful

Feathered birds of the field

There are the heavenly flowers

All around us

The beautiful fishes in the magic sea

The charming waterfalls

The fountains and springs

The bright stars during the day

The twinkling stars at night

But all in all

The woman is the best.

There is nothing like the woman.

If you want to see God’s signature,

Look at the shape of the woman.

There is nothing like the woman

In all of creation.

The woman is the best of all the rest.

There is, nothing, like the woman.

I See Women as Angels

Right from the day I was put to bed,

I saw a very beautiful woman putting

My head to rest.

Do not go too far:

That was my wonderful mama.

Today I am on my own

Dreaming from my home

I’ve got another angel:

She is Adwapa Special.

Every time I lie on my back,

I see them in their wings

Descending on me to make me sleep well.

Each time you see me in my semi casket,

Do not think me any close;

I am in Shangri-la watching them bright

My world with the greatest delight

But in my waking life,

They are brighter than the sun.

What more could God have done for man?

I see women as angels.

The Soles of Her Diamond Feet

She first folded her throne

And sat in the hot sands.

She accepted the position

Of fallen dried leaves

And hid her true self in the mud.

When the plants of her powerful

Creativity were denied water

And left to die,

She swallowed saliva to mute her voice.

She labored without rest to speed the sun

And yet her only remembrance came

When the bed was laid and needed to warm.

But now

She has sworn her oath

And dusted her throne for monolithic restoration:

She moves the crowd with works of art,

Shouts ‘EUREKA’ with Archimedes,

Partners Djata to build empires

And connects the world with just a click.

Now wherever she walks on the streets,

The soles of her diamond feet

Leave eternal prints.

There She Goes

There she goes;

She is a woman

The helper and completer

Do not watch her curves

And lick your lips