#kofi awoonor

[strwcherri]

Lotte, WIP

[ukdamo]

The Cathedral

Kofi Awoonor

On this dirty patch

a tree once stood

shedding incense on the infant corn:

its boughs stretched across a heaven

brightened by the last fires of a tribe.

They sent surveyors and builders

who cut that tree

planting in its place

A huge senseless cathedral of doom.

[allurlsaregone-blog]

I believe in men and the gods
in the spirit and the substance,
in death and the reawakening
in the promised festival and denial
in our heroes and the nation
in the wisdom of the people
the certainty of victory
the validity of struggle….

Kofi Awoonor, A Death Foretold

[allweknewisdead]

This Earth, My Brother... (1971) - Kofi Awoonor

He also had a habit of introducing such outlandish topics as philosophy and theosophy... Whenever he launched into these learned monologues, his friends listened with a shy deference, and admired his learning, but said to themselves: The man is mad.

[llovelymoonn]

favourite poems of january

christian wiman hard night: "the ice storm"

timothy donnelly hymn to life

randall jarrell the complete poems: "the lost world"

dana levin the living teaching

stuart dybeck brass knuckles: "the knife-sharpener's daughter"

kofi awoonor the promise of hope: new and selected poems: "lament of the silent sisters"

bruce snider ode to a dolly parton drag queen

jon pineda birthmark: "translation"

brenda shaughnessy interior with sudden joy: "dear gonglya"

franny choi hangul abecedarian

atsuro riley hutch

clark moore strikes and gutters

jenny xie eye level: "rootless"

alberto ríos the smallest muscle in the human body: "rabbits and fire"

tim seibles mosaic

anthony hecht an offering for patricia

harry matthews cool gales shall fan the glades

robert glück the word in us: lesbian and gay poetry of the next wave: "burroughs"

albert goldbarth the poem of the little house at the corner of misapprehension and marvel

george seferis collected poems (george seferis): "spring a.d."

alberto ríos a small story about the sky

sharmila voorakkara for the tattooed man

robin blaser the holy forest: collected poems of robin blaser: "the truth is laughter 10"

robert pinsky gulf music: "antique"

henri cole blackbird and wolf: "twilight"

paul violi likewise: "in praise of idleness"

ron padgett collected poems: "what are you on?"

meena alexander birthplace with buried stones: "lychees"

sara borjas decolonial self-portrait

valerie martínez absence, luminescent: "the reliquaries"

kathryn simmonds the visitations: "in the woods"

kofi

[lboogie1906]

Dr. Kofi Awoonor (born George Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor-Williams; March 13, 1935 – September 21, 2013) was a Ghanaian poet and author whose work combined the poetic traditions of his native Ewe people and contemporary and religious symbolism to depict Africa during decolonization. He started writing under the name George Awoonor-Williams and was published as Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor. He taught African literature at the University of Ghana. He was among those who were killed in the September 2013 attack at Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi.

He was born in Wheta, Ghana. He was the eldest of 10 children in the family. He was educated at Achimota School and graduated from the University of Ghana. He wrote his first poetry book, Rediscovery. His early works were inspired by the singing and verse of his native Ewe people and he published translations of the work of three Ewe dirge singers. He managed the Ghana Film Corporation and helped to found the Ghana Playhouse. He was an editor of the literary journal Okyeame and an associate editor of Transition Magazine.

He studied literature at University College London (MA) and while in England wrote several radio plays for the BBC, and began using the name, Kofi Awoonor.

He spent the early 1970s in the US, studying and teaching at Stony Brook University where he obtained his Ph.D. He wrote This Earth, My Brother, and Night of My Blood.

He returned to Ghana in 1975 as head of the English department at the University of Cape Coast. Within months he was arrested for helping a soldier accused of trying to overthrow the military government and was imprisoned without trial; he was released when his sentence was remitted in October 1976. The House by the Sea is about his time in jail. He became politically active. He continued to write mostly non-fiction.

He was Ghana’s ambassador to Brazil, before serving as his country’s ambassador to Cuba. He was Ghana’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, where he headed the committee against apartheid. He was a former Chairman of the Council of State, the main advisory body to the president of Ghana. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[every-thing-will-be-good]

Orwell, mutluluğun bireyin özgürlüğü ve bağımsızlığı ile yakından ilişkili olduğunu vurgular.

Franz Kafka, Dönüşüm adlı eserinde, insanın mutluluğunun içsel bir olgu olduğunu belirtir. Kendi iç dünyamızda mutluluğu bulmamız gerektiğini vurgular. Kafka, insanın kendisiyle barışık olduğu ve içsel huzuru yakaladığı zaman mutlu olacağını ifade eder.

Albert Camus, Sisifos Söyleni adlı eserinde, insanın mutluluğunun hayatın anlamsızlığına rağmen mümkün olduğunu vurgular. Camus, insanın hayatındaki her anı tamamen yaşaması ve hayatın acımasızlığına rağmen anlamlı bir yaşam kurması gerektiğini belirtir.

Afrikalı şair Kofi Awoonor, mutluluğun içsel bir deneyim olduğunu ve bireyin iç dünyasında bulunması gerektiğini ifade eder. Onun Mutluluk Şiiri'nde, insanların mal mülk, para ve güç arayışlarının aslında mutluluğu engellediğini ve gerçek mutluluğun insanın içinde olduğunu anlatır:

"Mutluluğu aramakta yorulmuştuk,

dışarıda aradık, içimizde aramadık.

Bulmak istediğimiz şeylerin ardından koşarken,

Mutluluğun içimizde olduğunu anlamadık."

Sonuç olarak, insanın mutluluk arayışı, bireyin kendine belirlediği amaçla mümkündür. Yirminci yüzyıl Avrupalı yazarlarının eserleri, mutluluğun insanın özgürlüğü, içsel huzuru ve anlamlı bir yaşam ile yakından ilişkili olduğunu vurgular."

[the-ghost-king]

if rebirth is self-sacrificial; I ate myself raw

Rick Riordan // Jenny Slate // D.H. Lawrence // Unknown // Kofi Awoonor // Photograph of shedded snake skin //Natalie Diaz // James Tissot // John Berger // Photograph of Jace Herondale //

[humnal]

America

By Kofi Awoonor

A name only once crammed into the child's fitful memory in malnourished villages, vast deliriums like the galloping foothills of the Colorado: of Mohawks and the Chippewa, horsey penny-movies brought cheap at the tail of the war to Africa. Where indeed is the Mississippi panorama and the girl that played the piano and kept her hand on her heart as Flanagan drank a quart of moonshine before the eyes of the town's gentlemen? What happened to your locomotive in Winter, Walt, and my ride across the prairies in the trail of the stage-coach, the gold-rush and the Swanee River? Where did they bury Geronimo, heroic chieftain, lonely horseman of this apocalypse who led his tribesmen across deserts of cholla and emerald hills in pursuit of despoilers, half-starved immigrants from a despoiled Europe? What happened to Archibald's soul's harvest on this raw earth of raw hates? To those that have none a festival is preparing at graves' ends where the mockingbird's hymn closes evening of prayers and supplication as new winds blow from graves flowered in multi-colored cemeteries even where they say the races are intact.

[allyourprettywords]

“Grains and Tears,” Kofi Awoonor

The river rock has long resigned itself to cold; where did the female crocodiles go when fire hit the village? Where did they go when fire reduced the houses to stump walls?

A grain grown in tears fields for orphans not satisfied implored to wash their hands, is meal of life

Go and tell them I paid the price I stood by the truth I fought anger and hatred on behalf of the people.  I ate their meager meals in the barracks shared their footsteps and tears in freedom’s name I promised once in a slave house in Ussher to postpone dying until the morning after freedom. I promise.

[strwcherri]

Lotte Williams, Bungo Stray Dogs OC. Inspired by Kofi Awoonor's prose.

I'm currently planning a fic with her, so I'm having fun with that.

[callmewinged]

The Journey Beyond

The howling cry through the doorposts

carrying boiling pots

ready for the feasters.

Kutsiami the benevolent boatman;

when I come to the river shore

please ferry me across

I do not have tied in my cloth the

price of your stewardship.

--Kofi Awoonor

[allurlsaregone-blog]

“Returning is not possible

And going forward is a great difficulty”

Kofi Awoonor, “Songs of Sorrow”

[forsoothsayer]

A Death Foretold by Kofi Awoonor

Sometimes, the pain and the sorrow return particularly at night. I will grieve again and again tomorrow for the memory of a death foretold. I grieve again tomorrow cull a flower across the yard listen to the birds in the tree. I grieve again tomorrow for a pain that grows on a pain a friend of my solitude in a bed long emptied by choice; I grieve again this grievance immemorial for this pain this load under which I wreathe and grieve Yesterday I could not go for my obligatory walk, instead I used the hour to recall the lanes, the trees the birds, the occasional snarling dog the brown sheep in a penned field the dwarf mango tree heavy with fruit the martian palms tall and erect the sentry-pines swaying in a distant field. I believe in the possibility of freedom in the coming of the bees in summer in mild winters and furious hurricanes; I believe in the arrival of American tornadoes before I go to hunt on that island of youth where I smelt the heady smell of the wild guinea fowl and heard her chuckle for her child in the opening light of an April day. I believe in hope and the future of hope, in victory before death collective, inexorable, obligatory; in the enduring prospect of love though the bed is empty, in the child's happiness though the meal is meagre. I believe in light and day beyond the tomb far from the solitude of the womb, and the mystical might, in the coming of fruits the striped salmon and the crooked crab; I believe in men and the gods in the spirit and the substance, in death and the reawakening in the promised festival and denial in our heroes and the nation in the wisdom of the people the certainty of victory the validity of struggle. Beyond the fields and the shout of the youth, beyond the pine trees and the gnarled mangoes redolent of childhood and prenativity, I am affronted by a vision apparitional, scaly lumbering over a wall raising a colossal bellow. His name is struggle. He is my comrade and my brother intimate, hurt, urgent and enduring. I will not grieve again tomorrow. I will not grieve again

[universitybookstore]

A CALL

She did not call me by name Not by the name my mother gave me She called me by another name A word I have not heard it before Yet I knew it was me. Will you come under the cashew tree beside the cemetery No, I don't. Yet I will go Perhaps a revelation awaits me Have they discovered the coloured cowrie? Or the specific herbs that will conjure They perhaps have found the lost wanderer I went after her. She stood still beneath the cashew And spoke not a word. 

-- Ghanaian poet and novelist, Kofi Awoonor (13 March 1935 – 21 September 2013)             

[lboogie1906]

Dr. Kofi Awoonor (born George Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor-Williams; March 13, 1935 – September 21, 2013) was a Ghanaian poet and author whose work combined the poetic traditions of his native Ewe people and contemporary and religious symbolism to depict Africa during decolonization. He started writing under the name George Awoonor-Williams and was published as Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor. He taught African literature at the University of Ghana. He was among those who were killed in the September 2013 attack at Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi. He was born in Wheta, Ghana. He was the eldest of 10 children in the family. He was educated at Achimota School and graduated from the University of Ghana. He wrote his first poetry book, Rediscovery. His early works were inspired by the singing and verse of his native Ewe people and he published translations of the work of three Ewe dirge singers. He managed the Ghana Film Corporation and helped to found the Ghana Playhouse. He was an editor of the literary journal Okyeame and an associate editor of Transition Magazine. He studied literature at University College London (MA) and while in England wrote several radio plays for the BBC, and began using the name, Kofi Awoonor. He spent the early 1970s in the US, studying and teaching at Stony Brook University where he obtained his Ph.D. He wrote This Earth, My Brother, and Night of My Blood. He returned to Ghana in 1975 as head of the English department at the University of Cape Coast. Within months he was arrested for helping a soldier accused of trying to overthrow the military government and was imprisoned without trial; he was released when his sentence was remitted in October 1976. The House by the Sea is about his time in jail. He became politically active. He continued to write mostly non-fiction. He was Ghana's ambassador to Brazil, before serving as his country's ambassador to Cuba. He was Ghana's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, where he headed the committee against apartheid. He was also a former Chairman of the Council of State, the main advisory body to the president of Ghana. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpuq7idOQfj/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=