Once an interesting idea or theme occurs to me then I would want to write a poem about it. The rest, frankly, is not difficult.
AMA ATA AIDOOSometimes a word or an argument will trigger a poem.
More Ama Ata Aidoo Quotes
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For us Africans, literature must serve a purpose: to expose, embarrass, and fight corruption and authoritarianism.
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Love is fine for singing about and love songs are good to listen to, sometimes even to dance to. But when we need food for our stomachs and clothes for our backs, love is nothing. Ah my lady, the last man any woman should think of marrying is the man she loves.
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Soyinka’s Death at Dawn, Auden’s Musée des Beaux Arts, Stevie Smith’s Not Waving but Drowning and Wislawa Szymborska’s Some People come to mind immediately. But there are plenty, plenty more that I enjoy.
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At the age of 15, a teacher had asked me what I wanted to do for a career, and without knowing why or even how I replied that I wanted to be a poet.
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Toyin Falola has given us what is truly rare in modern African writing: a seriously funny, racy, irreverent package of memories, and full of the most wonderful pieces of poetry and ordinary information.
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Once in a while I catch myself wondering whether I would have found the courage to write if I had not started to write when I was too young to know what was good for me.
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Its a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.
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O yes, everyone gets lonely some time or other.
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I always wanted to write poetry, even when I was very young.
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After all, if we look closer into ourselves, shall we not admit that the warmth from other people comes so sweet to us when it comes, because, we always carry with us the knowledge of the cold loneliness of death?
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The very old certainly do not go back on lunch remains but they do bite back at old conversational topics.
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They had always told me that I wrote like a man.
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Politicians are easy to attack, but frankly, we are all guilty of not meeting the needs of Africa’s young people properly.
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It is understandable why the African artist is utilitarian.
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No matter what anybody says, we can’t have it all. Not if you are a woman. Not yet.
AMA ATA AIDOO