This is Not a Love Poem

Between 2002 and 2005, Nii Ayikwei Parkes performed over 500 times in poetry venues around the world. To keep true to his self-imposed stipulation to never perform the same set twice, he wrote at an incredible rate during the period. Call them rants, essays, poems, exhortations, the beginnings of conversations with his audience and the world; they all bore marks of his wit, musical influences, the Ga language that informs his syntax, a playfulness with the muscle and bone of both words and ideas - and cheeky erotic undertones (a nod to Prince, one of his musical heroes) even in the most overtly political of poems. In this free e-book, This is Not a Love Poem, the first in a series of two, Nii shares for the first time the text of many of the pieces he wrote and performed - often just once or twice - as well as some commissions, such as the poem he wrote at the invitation of the Mayor of London to honour the victims of the July 7 bombing in 2005.