The Promise of Hope

New and Selected Poems, 1964-2013

Kofi Awoonor

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780803249899
• eBook ISBN: 9780803254947
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: African Poetry
• Index: Literature

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Anyidoho, himself a prominent poet and academic in Ghana, The Promise of Hope contains much of Awoonor’s most recent unpublished poetry, along with many of his anthologized and classic poems.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.

 

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• In Retrospect: An Introduction
• From "Herding the Lost Lambs"
• The Light Is On
• The New Boy on the Block
• Across a New Dawn
• Songs of Abuse
• To Feed Our People
• To the Ancient Poets
• Counting the Years
• Once More
• On the Gallows Once
• Truth
• What Brought Me Here?
• What More Can I Give?
• Those Gone Ahead
• Up in the Garden
• Xiansi, Pou Tou Dalla
• I’ll Raise a New Song
• Remembrance
• From "Latin American Caribbean Notebook"
• In Memoriam
• Of Home and Sea I Already Sang
• Of Home Once More
• Rio De Janeiro: Fearful and Lovely City
• Distant Home Country
• Agra: January 21, 1989
• Cuban Chapters
• The Hero’s Blood
• Of Faith and Fortitude
• The Orient Express
• Betrayers
• Havana, Cuba: The Free Territory of the Americas
• A Caress
• For Tenu and Afetsi: A Hymn
• Of Niggerhood
• A Death Foretold
• The Prophecy from Iran
• In Memoriam: Return to Kingston
• Lover’s Song
• The Red Bright Book of History
• At a Time Like This
• Back with Sandino
• Prayer
• The Ancient Twine
• Seatime, Another
• Readings and Musings
• Light Hours in Verse
• Time Revisited
• A Thin Echo of Time’s Voice
• “As Long as There Are Tears and Suffering, So Long Our Work Will Not Be Over,” Jawaharlal Nehru
• The Girl that Died in Havana
• Our Pride Alone
• Dream—Again
• New Rain
• Birds on an Autumn Wire
• Shamla Hills: Bhopal
• Shamla Hills: Sanchi Temples
• Childhood
• Parting
• From "Until the Morning After"
• Life’s Tears
• So the World Changes
• Life’s Winds
• Grains and Tears
• Had Death Not Had Me in Tears
• Act of Faith
• I Rejoice
• The Picture
• For Ezeki
• From "The House by the Sea"
• Part One: Before the Journey
• Poems, Fall ’73
• The Land Endures
• Going Somehow
• After the Exile and the Feasts
• Some Talk of Lunar Virgins
• Poem
• Poetry
• Departure and Prospect
• When Going into Jail
• Africa
• Poem
• Of Absence
• Poem
• Poem
• Sequences
• For Henoga Vinoko Akpalu
• An American Poem
• Another Lover’s Song
• Self-Portrait
• Part Two: Homecoming . . . Poems from Prison
• Homecoming
• The Second Circle: Beginning Midnight 5/1/76: (5th January 1976)
• On Being Told of Torture
• The First Circle
• Dream of Home
• Revolution
• To Sika on Her 11th Birthday
• Revolution: A Chat with Ho Chi Minh’s Ghost
• Found Poem
• Another Found Poem
• The Place
• Poem
• Us
• Love
• Personal Note
• Sea Time, Meaning a Pledge
• The Will to Die
• A Little Word
• The Wayfarer Comes Home
• From "Ride Me, Memory"
• America
• Harlem on a Winter Night
• Long Island Sketches
• To My Uncle Jonathan: A Song of Abuse
• To Felicity, a Girl I Met in LA
• Hymns of Praise, Celebration, and Prayer
• Afro-American Beats
• Etchings from My Mind
• My Father’s Prayer
• My Uncle the Diviner—Chieftain
• To Sika
• To Those Gone Ahead
• From "Night of My Blood"
• I Heard a Bird Cry
• Night of My Blood
• Stop the Death-Cry
• A Dirge
• More Messages
• At the Gates
• The Dance
• Do Not Handle It
• All Men My Brothers
• Lament of the Silent Sisters
• Hymn to My Dumb Earth
• They Do Not Sound for Me
• From "Rediscovery and Other Poems"
• My God of Songs Was Ill
• The Sea Eats the Land at Home
• The Cathedral
• What Song Shall We Sing
• We Have Found a New Land
• The Anvil and the Hammer
• Rediscovery
• The Weaver Bird
• The Purification
• The Gone Locusts
• Songs of Sorrow
• From "This Earth, My Brother: An Allegorical Tale of Africa"
• The Making of a New Nation
• From "Comes the Voyager at Last: A Tale of Return to Africa"
• Festival of Oneness
• An Epilogue
• Source Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Footnotes
• About the Author
• Series List