World Poetry Proudly Presents the Poet AJA from Barbados and Brooklyn, NY!

Ariadne’s note: The World Poetry Café Radio Show with hosts Ariadne Sawyer and Israel Mota were honored to welcome the Internationally known performance poet and musician AJA to the show. Also the show was dedicated to Komla Dumor BBC anchor from Ghana who passed away last week in our new In Loving Memory segment. E-poems from Oswald George Okaitei    and  Benjamin Oku were also featured as well as music from Rene Hugo Sanchez and Anthony Blackman, steel pan player and teacher. To listen CLICK HERE!

 

A Special Message to the World.

“As we start 2014, it is time that people understand that there is only one race on the Earth – the Human Race. Therefore, the artificial barriers and divisions that exist must be eliminated, for the World to live as One.

We are all going around together, and we must share a collective responsibility not only to protect the planet, but to make human existence one free of hunger, poverty, war and many of the other global issues.

Human consciousness needs to rise to this level of awareness for Human existence to attain a higher level. The fact that millions of children die from hunger and poverty every year does not paint a positive picture and negates human development, which seems to be measured solely by technological development. ” By AJA

AJA poet is a Barbadian-born World Music & Jazz poet and musician based in New York.  AJA blends Jazz and R&B with various Caribbean rhythms – including Reggae and Calypso, to create a unique sound.  This provides the platform for him to deliver his thought-provoking and engaging poetry. AJA has taken performance poetry to the international World Music, Jazz and Poetry Festivals stages; and his works have also been internationally published.

A feature of AJA is his intensity on stage. His work is captivating with heart-wrenching imagery that is engaging – “edutainment”.  From his emergence as a poet, AJA has focused on global issues such as war, hunger and the abuse of women and children. But in 2003 he decided to do more and transformed his poems from the stage and the page into practical initiatives in Barbados, other Caribbean territories as well as in Sierra Leone, West Africa.

In 2003 he was made a UNDP Spokesperson on Peace and Poverty Eradication for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.  He is also a UN Women Caribbean Partner for Peace; and a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Network of Men Leaders – promoting and mobilising activities for the “UNiTE: End Violence against Women” Campaign.

Click here for a live performance:BIO eFlyer AJA

Here are two of his performance pieces:

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www.reverbnation.com/ajapoet    Tel: 917-797-9173  Email: ajapoet@hotmail.com

Hyphenated

Inspired by Governor Bobby Jindal comments on race in America on the 50th Anniversary of the Speech by Martin Luther Jr.

I am a wedged between people

undermining the oneness of thought and being

I stop minds from seeing

To see only differences and comparisons

I am most distinct in my intent

More identifiable than apartheid

More universal than the snaking

Red Sea Walls of Separation

I project more snobbery from my appearance

That the opulence of the wealthy

Pushing up their noses

at the lifestyles coming from

inner Brooklyn ‘hip-hop’ cities

 

I may appear shortened

as though a line incomplete

and robbed from reaching my wholeness

But nevertheless,

I am imposed everywhere at will

inconveniently overused and inserted

indicating a link between

But a separate-ness

who am I?

I am hyphen

when I arrived in America

I immediately hyphen-native the Indians

Didn’t look back

while forwarding through time

To define all persons and patrons

Then I hyphenated the North from the South

Made America see itself

Only through hyphen after hyphen

I am made it citizens become hyphened-Americans

 

I hyphenated every race

Made people look at only face

Even hyphenated their space

displacing logical thinking

confusing the understanding of the social engineering

Or making it disappear

And in contrast I created

A Working hyphen class

A Middle hyphen class

An a Upper hyphen class

 

And as time further passed

I became that space

a hyphen between their ears

Imagine that, me just a small dash

A seemingly insignificant symbol

One that can’t multiply or add

subtract or divide

Could become such a symbol

Of the splintering of Americans

Into so many Social hyphen Class divisions.

August 26, 2013

Adisa ‘AJA’ Andwele, (c) 1094 East 58 Street, Brooklyn,  NY 11234