The Promise of Hope
New and Selected Poems, 1964-2013
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Kofi Awoonor, one of Ghana’s most accomplished poets, had for almost half a century committed himself to teaching, political engagement, and the literary arts. The one constant that guided and shaped his many occupations and roles in life was poetry. The Promise of Hope is a beautifully edited collection of some of Awoonor’s most arresting work spanning almost fifty years.
Selected and edited by Awoonor’s friend and colleague Kofi Anyidoho, himself a prominent poet and academic in Ghana, The Promise of Hope contains much of Awoonor’s most recent unpublished poetry, along with many of his anthologized and classic poems. This engaging volume serves as a fitting contribution to the inaugural cohort of books in the African Poetry Book Series.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In effect the national poet of Ghana, Awoonor (1935-2013) belongs to the first generation of African writers who grew up along with their countries; his verse from the 1960s integrates modernist sparseness with traditional icons and ceremonial forms, as in "A Dirge": "Our fathers, the hippo has overturned our canoe./ We come home/ Our guns point to the earth." Awoonor became a professor of literature in Long Island; in 1975 returned to Ghana, where he was incarcerated for political reasons; and from 1984 to 1994 served as Ghana's ambassador to Brazil, to Cuba, and to the United Nations. His later verse (along with his prose, sparsely excerpted here) reflects all that experience, folding into its lines disillusion with the U.S.; determination and resistance in jail; and enthusiasm for an international revolutionary left, for "commitments that will not wait." Awoonor's sudden death killed by terrorists who attacked the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi prompted tributes from across Africa and the African diaspora. His place in a tradition seems secure; the later poems may sound like public speeches, but the earlier work, towards the end of this big selection, remains valuable for its vivid attempts to make new, locally rooted forms.
