Bad Ass Raindrop

About the Book: 

Fadeke Kokumo Rocks' poetry is alive with love, passion, humour, wisdom and brutal honesty. It is sharply observed, potent and insightful capturing beautifully the sixth dimension of the creative eye. It has a rich diversity of time and content which embraces the globe and its conflicts, domestic and urban. You can hear the monsoon rains of Africa, taste the mangoes of India, touch the compassion and spirit of the child and feel the pain of burning flesh as race riots rage in Scotland. What would happen if a raindrop took acid? What are the identifying characteristics of a "gaggle" in their natural environment? And have you noticed that there are no black babies on "New Baby" cards?

Reviews: 

Kokumo Rocks is the Tiger Woods of performance poetry. ANGUS CALDER

About the Author:

KOKUMO ROCKS was born in Dundee in 1965, but was raised in the Fife mining village of Cowdenbeath. Hers was the only black family in the area, and she left school with no qualifications or spelling. It wasn’t until she attended university in the mid-90s that she was diagnosed as dyslexic.

In 1991 she decided to change the direction of her life following a near-death experience, and began to fulfil her life-long ambition to become a performance poet. Kukumo’s poetry explores the themes of love, race, freedom and imprisonment, and she does so with a sense of the importance of fun and humour – proud to include “the flabby bits”.

She describes herself as an African/Asian/Scottish writer and performance poet, and has performed in the UK, USA, India and Africa.

Kukumo – the name means “this one will not die” – lives by the motto “if you don’t ask you won’t get”, and believes that passion can turn the “mundane into excitement”. She has been inspired by poets including Maya Angelou, Benjamin Zephania and Ivor Cutler, but above all by ‘growing up black in Scotland’.