Poetra Asantewa

She is 26. Her real name is Ama Asantewa Diaka, her stage name Poetra Asantewa, and her work is thought provoking.

She told DW how she began reciting poetry to a live audience."I started as an ordinary poet. I was writing until a friend invited me to an event here and I came for one and I thought I can do this and I tried it."

Poetra was referring to Ehalakasa, a festival of the spoken word, music and dance, hosted by the Nubuke Foundation, an Accra-based organization which promotes Ghanaian arts and culture.

Poetra delights in freedom of expression. "The beauty about words is that you write something for yourself and you come on stage and perform it and somebody completely relates to what you are doing, so it made me passionate about the whole art," she said.

She finds she has a broad choice of subjects at her disposal. "I write about feminism, I write about the economy, I write about government, I write about relationships, I write about people."

Winning over audiences

Her art clearly strikes a chord with Ghanaian poetry fans. "It was nice, it was deep. I like the way she did everything. I mean, it was basically about women, sex, but it was well coded," one woman told DW after a performance.

A male member of the audience was equally impressed. "There is content, there is style, presentation, all packaged, and I think she is undoubtedly one of the best poets we have in Ghana."

Another woman in the audience agreed with him. "Poetra's performance is phenomenal. I think she knows how to play with words. She knows how to conjure up imagery to make you travel into the settings of her performance, that's what I love about her work," she said.

Success opens doors. "I have performed on almost all the stages in Accra or Ghana, I have been on all the TV shows, I have been at big events, corporate events. The last time I was in Uganda, I was the only woman from Ghana to represent the country at Femrite. So it's taking me to places I didn't imagine," Poetra said.

Femrite is the Uganda Women's Writers Association, an NGO founded in 1995 to promote women's writing across Africa.

Poetra owns the Ghanaian fashion brand Alikoto Clothing. But she has very definite ideas about where her future career path lies.

"I hope one day to be making money just out of writing, because that's who I am. I have had quite a number of people coming up to me saying 'I love what you did there, how can I do this, I write.' So it's a circle, I learn from somebody and somebody learns from me. I hope this goes as far as possible," she said.