She smiled and tapped the seat of the empty chair next to her in welcome. And so it was, that I sat beside the legendary Ama Ata Aidoo up on that wide, wooden stage during the Poetry Reading night at Ake 2017. We weren’t alone on stage though – three other poets, all women were there too, waiting to hear their names called and offer their words in turn up to that pre-Covid sardine-packed audience. Life was more innocent then – we didn’t know what was to come.

Still, after my reading she congratulated me, told me my work was “fantastic” and insisted I must continue to write! A far more generous compliment on her part than I had any right to expect. I walked on air for weeks and boasted about it shamelessly to whomsoever I could get to listen. Including to you reading this reflection too!

I do know that this happened because I have the photo to prove it. More importantly, I have the vivid memory of her words – words I have turned to again and again to remind me to press on, finish that poem, publish that book, express that thought. 

And what I also know, is that without the opportunity given to me to stand on that Ake stage I cannot imagine how or where I would ever have met Ms. Aidoo. In person o! Not just through her books or devouring her interviews to decipher her craft. But, a mere arms length away –  a distance covered by the farewell hug she gave me the next day at breakfast in the restaurant of the hotel as we all planned our departures.

When a person dreams, that person seeks validation from others further along on the path towards achieving that dream. A woman writing in Africa, about African things, needs to see that this has been achieved by some other African woman at other times and in other places. So, that therefore, it is possible for her to continue to do so as well, leaving her own words scattered as breadcrumbs behind her for others also to read and follow. This is why that encounter is seared in my brain. Because it is one thing to be inspired from afar – it is quite another to be directly given the personal encouragement of “you can do this!”

Now, on this 10th anniversary of Ake as I recall that shimmering night of poetry, I thank the festival and its organisers for unstintingly being able to curate the palpable creative energies within this literary gathering for the last ten years, for fostering the ambience in which polite exchanges with strangers on the first day of the festival turn by the last day into intense conversations between long lasting friends and most of all for the confirmation that dreams do come true. Onwards and upwards always! E ku ise!