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  • Tin Roof
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Tin Roof

Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Wild harmattan winds whip you
but still you stay;
they spit dust all over your gleam
and twist your sharp cutting edges.
The rains come zinging mud
with their own tapping music
yet you remain
– my pride –
my very own tin roof.


Nii Ayikwei Parkes

from Best Poems on the Underground, edited by Gerard Benson, Judith Chernaik & Cicely Herbert (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009)

Reproduced by kind permission of the author.

Tags:

African poetry Ghana rain resilience roofs wind

About this poem

This poem, representing Ghana, is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.

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Nii Ayikwei Parkes

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