Prof Kofi Awoonor, great African voice, poet

 

According to Neil Armstrong, “Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand.”

It is a mystery and a wonder to know that a Ghanaian poet and diplomat, Professor Kofi Awoonor, who travelled to Kenya to participate in the Storymoja Hay Festival, a celebration of writing and storytelling was killed by a terrorists attack.

Born on March 13, 1935, he died after sustaining injuries during the attack by Somali militant group, al-Shabaab at Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya on September 21, 2013. He supposed to perform on Saturday evening as part of a pan-African poetry event. His son, Afetfi Awoonor, was shot in the shoulder and is recovering in Nairobi.

The Ghanaian poet’s work combined the poetic traditions of his native Ewe people and contemporary and religious symbolism to depict Africa during decolonization. He taught African literature at the University of Ghana and wrote his first poetry book, Rediscovery, a book based on African oral poetry published in 1964.

In Ghana, he managed the Ghana Film Corporation and founded the Ghana Play House.

He spent the early 1970s in the United States, studying and teaching at universities. While in the USA he wrote This Earth, My Brother in 1971, and My Blood. Awoonor returned to Ghana in 1975 as head of the English department at the University of Cape Coast. He studied literature at the University of London, and while in England he wrote several radio plays for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Shortly after he returned to Ghana, he was arrested for helping a soldier accused of trying to overthrow the military government and was imprisoned without trial and was later released. The House By the Sea published in 1978 is a story about his time in jail. After imprisonment Awoonor became politically active and has written mostly nonfiction.

He was Ghana's Ambassador to the United Nations from 1990 to 1994, and headed the committee against apartheid. He was also a former Chairman of the Council of State.

Writers, poets and festival organisers from different parts of the word have paid tributes to him.

According to The Telegraph, A statement issued by the Festival said “We were honoured to be graced by his appearance at Storymoja Hay Festival, and deeply humbled by his desire to impart knowledge to the young festival audience. Professor Awoonor was one of Africa's greatest voices and poets and will forever remain a beacon of knowledge and strength and hope.” The Festival was brought to an end on Saturday evening "in sympathy with those who have lost their lives or were injured" and for the safety of attendees.

He was joined by his countrymen at the four day event, in what he called “the best representation of Ghanaian authors that we have ever had”. Among them were poet Nii Parkes and writer and film-maker Kwame Dawes. Both paid tribute to Professor Awoonor on Twitter, with Parkes writing: “I muse on gifts given and swiftly taken away. I waited my whole life to meet my uncle, Kofi Awoonor, and 2 days later he is gone.” Dawes posted: “Kofi Awoonor's death is a sad moment here in Nairobi. We have lost one of the greatest African poets and diplomats. I've lost my uncle.”

Some of his poetry works are: Rediscovery and Other Poems (1964), Night of My Blood (1971) – poems that explore Awoonor's roots, and the impact of foreign rule in Africa and The House By the Sea (1978).

Notable novels he wrote are: This Earth, My Brother (1971) – a cross between a novel and a poem and Comes the Voyager at Last (1992.)

Also, his popular non-fiction books are: The Breast of the Earth: A Survey of the History, Culture, and Literature of Africa South of the Sahara written in 1975 was published by Anchor Press.

He also wrote Ghana: A Political History from Pre-European to Modern Times was published in 1990.

Prof. Awoonor’s widely celebrated poem, Songs of Sorrow, is the divided into two parts with different themes. The first part portrays the poverty state at which the poet finds himself, while the second part is a dirge that portrays the lamentation of the poet over the death of his household and neighbours.
Shortly after the report of his death, poetry lovers in many parts of the world have been celebrating Song of Sorrow.
A middle age Nigerian recalled how she got a lot of money from people after she recited this poem when she was younger at a gathering to the extent that the money was enough for her to buy Christmas dresses, shoes and bags.
Though poet Awoonor is gone, his works will continue to appeal to art lovers.

Songs of Sorrow by Kofi Awoonor

Dzogbese Lisa has treated me thus

It has led me among the sharps of the forest

Returning is not possible

And going forward is a great difficulty

The affairs of this world are like the chameleon faeces

Into which I have stepped

When I clean it cannot go.


I am on the world’s extreme corner,

I am not sitting in the row with the eminent

But those who are lucky

Sit in the middle and forget

I am on the world’s extreme corner

I can only go beyond and forget.



My people, I have been somewhere

If I turn here, the rain beats me

If I turn there the sun burns me

The firewood of this world

Is for only those who can take heart

That is why not all can gather it.

The world is not good for anybody

But you are so happy with your fate;

Alas! the travelers are back

All covered with debt.



Something has happened to me

The things so great that I cannot weep;

I have no sons to fire the gun when I die

And no daughter to wail when I close my mouth

I have wandered on the wilderness

The great wilderness men call life

The rain has beaten me,

And the sharp stumps cut as keen as knives

I shall go beyond and rest.

I have no kin and no brother,

Death has made war upon our house;



And Kpeti’s great household is no more,

Only the broken fence stands;

And those who dared not look in his face

Have come out as men.

How well their pride is with them.

Let those gone before take note

They have treated their offspring badly.

What is the wailing for?

Somebody is dead. Agosu himself

Alas! a snake has bitten me

My right arm is broken,

And the tree on which I lean is fallen.



Agosi if you go tell them,

Tell Nyidevu, Kpeti, and Kove

That they have done us evil;

Tell them their house is falling

And the trees in the fence

Have been eaten by termites;

That the martels curse them.

Ask them why they idle there

While we suffer, and eat sand.

And the crow and the vulture

Hover always above our broken fences

And strangers walk over our portion.



To Kofi Awoonor (1935-2013)

By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

An ancestor

In the future tense

Past tense is not your forte

Kofi

Son of Awoonor

Abiding in spirit

Between capitals

And periods

Beyond the death sentence

Of mullahs of terror.

I sing of you

In the present tense

Songs sans sorrow

Out of the lofts

Bearing legends

Of the weaverbird

Bestriding Kenya and Ghana

In the hug of harmony

Named immortality

Across the globe of love.

By Chika Unigwe

They steal.

They steal lives.

They steal laughter.

 But only for a season.

For what they cannot steal is the soul.

They steal. They steal sleep. They steal words. But only for a season. For what they cannot steal is memory. Awoonor lives on.