Abstract
This autoethnographic poetic inquiry presents childhood and adulthood experiences of a silenced life that navigated the journey through silence into the world of speech. Using poetry to retell and relive these experiences creates the metaphor and the imagery into my world, thereby offering reflexivity, aestheticism, meaning, and hope. The two poems represent the stages of my life while I carry the reader along my passing years in a chronological manner. I invite the reader to enjoy, reflect, and interpret this poetry bearing in mind the broken shackles of the silenced voice.
“One writes out of one thing only—one’s own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.”
I write as a native A native of Anyako, Ghana The Land of my birth The Land of my freedom The Land of my hope The Land of my power Knowing me Drenched in a world of submission Drenched in a world of silence Seeing the unseen Knowing the unknown Not from your side But from my side A story with or without you Knowing me Knowing you I am drenched in silence Embracing silence in culture, school and around me Descending into the valley of silence Co-coerced or not; I don’t know Speaking many languages but without a voice Alas! Pregnant with ideas but without a voice Destined to speak but without a voice Endowed to speak but without a voice Are you a girl? Are you a woman? Your portion: Taped mouth Taped mouth: Buried ideas; buried lives Relive my silence, retell my silence, reflect, oh my silence Where lies your essence Where lies your strength Where lies your power
Endowed but still voiceless Seeing now and seeing clearly Venture into the unknown In class, yes Esi, yes Yes, Aku, Yes, Afi Yes, your views? Yes, your concerns? Silence, total silence! Thinking through Thinking through your thoughts? No response! Silence. . . My thoughts run wide The answer. . . The solution I thought through I need a voice You need a voice I need a space You need a space Oh, I have one You have one A voice; a space Use it The way to win is to start Not to think only but to start Not to be alone but to join I speak; you speak We speak and create I remove the cloak of silence on self You remove the cloak of silence Shake of the ashes of silence Lend a helping hand Go alone? NO! Go along! In unity and strength In unity and progress In unity and impact Broken Shackles: Hearing the Silenced Voices Living in two worlds? A world of silence and speech?
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
