Tale of Shadows (New and Selected Poems, 2017-2023)

Praise for Kwakye
“In a language which echoes no known poet’s, a voice so singular in its unconventionality, and themes that capture the poet’s people’s history and reality in spectacular images, Benjamin Kwakye …pioneers a fresh path in contemporary African poetry.”
—Tanure Ojaide,
Poet and Frank Porter Graham Professor of Africana Studies,
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

“Benjamin Kwakye emerges … as the most versatile of African poets, the master of various poetic techniques. Whether working from traditional sources of inspiration like the praise poem or the dirge, or deploying, in a modernist way, taut, condensed, yet powerful imagery that must be unraveled to get at meaning, or using free verse or rhymes, he shows himself a
complete master of the poetic art, and he has produced poems combining compactness with fluidity and fluency. His themes include the whole gamut of the African experience: the glorious heroes and heroines of the African past, the lusciousness of the African environment, the oppressiveness of imperialism, the corruption of contemporary life. He continues to reinforce his claim to being incontestably in the front rank of African writers.”
—Eustace Palmer,
Professor Emeritus, Georgia College and State University

“No doubt, Kwakye’s maturation as a poet is noticeable in this collection, and it is to his credit that he is a part of the wonderful renaissance taking place in Africa’s contemporary poetry
scene.”
—Dike Okoro
Author/Editor, Futurism and the African Imagination