Although I am a new admirer of Kofi Awoonor and his poetry, I have been deeply saddened by the loss to the world that his tragic death has brought. From the small state of Rhode Island in the United States, I share the sadness of losing such a man.

It is ever more poignant that the loss of such a great man came while he was attending the Storymoja, a peaceful gathering to celebrate life and what literature can bring to it. The circumstances of Prof. Awoonor’s life and death make it ever more incumbent that we, here in the United States, there in Africa, everywhere and anywhere, devote our lives to the celebration of LIFE and the ending of hatred and violence.

Thank you, Kofi Awoonor for your life – it has made living so much more meaningful to all of us.

Sincerely and with deep sadness,

Jay Miller
Former Judge
Adjunct Professor of Law
Newport, R.I., U.S.A.

I am certain there are others who, like me, received invitations to the recent edition of the Storymoja/Hay Literature Festival in Nairobi, but could not attend. My absence was particularly regrettable, because I had planned to make up for my failure to turn up for the immediate prior edition. Participant or absentee however, this is one edition we shall not soon forget.

It was at least two days after the listing of Kofi Awoonor among the victims that I even recollected the fact that the Festival was ongoing at that very time. With that realization came another:  that Kofi and I could have been splitting a bottle at that same watering hole in between events and at the end of each day. My feelings, I wish to state clearly, did not undergo any changes. Read the rest of the tribute and his promise here.

Thank you for organizing the tribute for Prof. Awoonor on Monday evening. As I struggle to make sense of the past few days’ happenings… I have put a few thoughts together as my humble tribute to Brother-Elder Prof. Awoonor and within this space; I am also remembering others that have lost theirlives or got injured in this so deeply violating and unfortunate incident here in Kenya.
I humbly request that you accommodate my “rogue” third main stanza of 40 lines (42 with spacing) – representing and dedicating 10 lines for each of the 4 days as we looked on painfully yet hopefully in anticipation to an end to the madness. Below is my tribute. Peace!

Ask No Questions Child

in memory of Brother-Elder Prof. Kofi Awoonor

ask no questions child

for elders know things…

laden with pregnant bindings

things that feel, smell, sound

like an Eagle’s thwarted soaring,

solemnly crumbling,

yet enfolded in arms

strong like pots

of the ancients,

smeared with jinxed herbs

for the healing

incantation

ask no questions child

for elders know things…

laden with pregnant bindings

things curved out of

optical-fibers, thorns, “surplus gunpowder”*

seeds, grains, roots, glass,

bark, rocks, thread, glue,

iron, ochre, hair strands, nucleic acid,

porridge, yam, sorghum, rubber,

copper-lime-spewing cotton

molds of cyanide,

laying cockroach eggs

for the hushed

feasts

of

doom

ask no questions child

for elders know things…

laden with pregnant bindings

things that elude us,

yet severely, gnaw our minds,

evoked in balance…

Wind, Sun, Water, Moon, Fire, Earth;

Àṣẹ! Àṣẹ! Àṣẹ! Àṣẹ! Àṣẹ! Àṣẹ! Àṣẹ! Àṣẹ!

a consecrate, plentiful basket;

we aspired…

to reap,

harvest together,

a festival!

“storymoja”*

but

…

ALAS!

…

ogres;

amanani,

majitu,

ebirecha,

mashetani,

emerged…

in full costume

from dungeons

alien-to-childhood-folklore…

swarming, swirling, swathing;

slimy, sluggish, slough

clogging, clinging, clanging,

fire–spitting tongues,

in sacred places …

hither and thither;

birthing,

a severely obscene

abhorrence,

with their saliva’s

malignant defecation,

poisoned

in

broad

daylight

(exhausted)

ask no questions child

for elders know things…

laden with pregnant bindings

things unfolding

a chocked, sliced moon, quadrupled

into hollow, senseless horrors,

snatching

souls,

young-old,

a beautiful rainbow of souls!

now ferried, yonder, before us…

to witness,

the dances of the ancestors;

relay our libation, receive!

quench the thirst, commune!

calm the rage

imbibed in shadows,

baffled in time,

a

desecration

of

systems

&

values…

atrociously

failed

ask no questions child

for elders know things…

laden with pregnant bindings

Ask

No Questions

Child?!

Says Who?

Mwalimu, Brother- Elder

Kofi Awoonor

Cultured Us…

to Ask Questions!

Indeed…

The “Canoe”* Has Arrived.

Paddle On… To the Other Side,

Brother-Elder Kofi Awoonor.

Worthy of Touching their Faces…

Dancing… with the Ancestors… Beyond Infinite, Golden Sunsets

May Peace Be Your Guide and Abode,

Àṣẹ… Àṣẹ… Àṣẹ… Àṣẹ… Àṣẹ…

Àṣẹ… Àṣẹ… Àṣẹ… Àṣẹ…

Àṣẹ… Àṣẹ… Àṣẹ…

Àṣẹ… Àṣẹ…

Àṣẹ…

“Look for a canoe* for me/That I go home in it/Look for it/The lagoon waters are in storm/And the hippos are roaring/But I will cross the river/And go beyond…”

…

“… I heard the voice of a gun/I came to have a look/Who are those?/Who are those saying/They have surplus gunpowder*/And so we cannot have peace?”

Prof. Kofi Awoonor from his poem “I Heard a Bird Cry”

Kerubo Abuya

Nairobi. 26th September 2013

There are few people that can make a first impression so lasting that it makes you see your craft in a whole new light.

I first became aware of Prof. Kofi Awoonor when I heard that he was to speak and have a masterclass at the Storymoja Hay Festival. I became interested in his work after reading a study of his work, ‘This Earth, My Brother’.

His masterclass on ‘The Responsibility of the African Writer’ was especially revealing. Here was a man who had written longer than my country had been independent. He represented a link with the past, with the age-old traditions of singing and performing poetry that are now classified dryly as ‘Oral Literature’. The fact that these poems and songs of Africa have influenced genres as varied as spoken word, hip hop and rap show that African literature has a profound contribution to make to the rest of the world.

He was a man who found humour in everything, even in the fact that his name had been misspelt in the event programme.

He was also a man who loved language. He spoke 5 Ghanaian languages fluently, along with French, German and Dutch. Remarkably, at his age, he was also learning Portuguese to translate and promote his work in Portugal. He confessed that he counted himself incredibly lucky to have never been rejected by an editor. His dedication to his work, and the lengths that he was willing to go to were legendary.

One thing that he loved though was to read. In his opinion, the best way for a writer to build up his work was through reading the works of others. He started with the classics, with Jane Austen’s love affairs and James Joyce’s Ulysses. In the course of his reading, he encountered interesting, sometimes subtle themes. He pointed out that Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, for example, contains an interesting narrative about colonization and language, where Caliban’s freedom and rule over the island is broken by Prospero’s sorcery. When Prospero lands on his island, Caliban treats him well, and Prospero in return teaches him a language with which he could express himself. The way the English language was imposed on Africa, however, led to an interesting side effect: we were able to talk to each other directly, providing a convenient point of exchange.
 

While African English is a colonial construct, its bonus is in giving us a way to communicate directly – Kofi Awoonor at #SMHayfest

— Mugendi Nyagah (@IAmMugendi) September 21, 2013

 
However, even when we talked to each other in English, we still remained in touch with the creativity that our languages possessed. Where direct translation failed, we often resort to imagery.
 

The quirks and comedy of African languages show up in translation. People 'hear' smells and 'drink' cigarettes – Kofi Awoonor at #SMHayfest

— Mugendi Nyagah (@IAmMugendi) September 21, 2013

 
Prof. Awoonor’s provocation to write was from a sense of obligation. One of his grandmothers was a priestess who performed incantations, while the other was a dirge singer. He felt that he needed to contribute to the culture of his people by promoting their poetry, both in the original language and translated to English. Another provocation to write that he shares with Chinua Achebe was the need to go against the prevailing opinion that Africa had no culture. Achebe had written ‘Things Fall Apart’ in response to ‘Mister Johnson’, a story of a bumbling African clerk that made so many mistakes that his life became a farcical representation of how the colonialists viewed Africa.
Ultimately, the heart of the masterclass was the fact that we all have an obligation to write as Africans. In order to do this, we need to answer four questions.
 

Before you write, ask yourself: Who am I? Where am I from? What is it I want to say? How do I want to say it? – Kofi Awoonor at #SMHayfest

— Mugendi Nyagah (@IAmMugendi) September 21, 2013

 
1. Who are you? Not just your name, but the sum total of your identity. If you don’t know who you are, then you are lost. You need to have confidence in yourself first before you write, and this arises from your understanding of what you are made of. One of the ways to answer this is to look at where you come from, the people who have gone before you. Everyone has ancestors with whom we share an inescapable link, and identifying these connections makes it easier to identify who we truly are.
2. Where do you call home? We all carry our homes around with us, like a snail with its shell. Home is where your art, your being and your true purpose lie. Home is part of identity. This is why the most eloquent stories that we can tell are those around us, those that contain in them the things that we are most familiar with.
Even for people who would consider themselves rootless, the people who live in cities like Nairobi who feel rootless also have a home that they can find and connect with.
 

Even 'rootless' urban Africans have a strong connection to tradition which is a deep source of inspiration – Kofi Awoonor at #SMHayfest

— Mugendi Nyagah (@IAmMugendi) September 21, 2013

 
3. What makes you think you can write? Until you can answer this question, anything you say will lack conviction. We all have stories that we can tell, but that alone is not reason enough to write. We should write because we have things that need to be said. He summed this up with a saying, ‘I have something to say, and I will say it before death comes. Let no one say it for me.’
4. What would you want to write about? He noted that there are many things that can be written about, ‘as many as the range of human emotions’. Every emotion is legitimate, and so it comes with its own story. Stories are a testament to the human condition, where conflict is engrained, and that is why we are happy when they are resolved. Good stories can also leave the situation hanging for the reader to resolve on their own. Every writer contends with his historical background and uses it as a source for his writing. We need to write more of our own stories, to share our perspectives as African writers with the world.
Stories are after all about meetings and partings, where we are introduced to the characters in the beginning, go through the story with them and say farewell at the end. How we feel towards them, how we feel towards the situations they are in, that is something that is brought out by how it is written.
His love for poetry showed in his lament for how it is taught. Taking the art of the poem and making it a dry, complicated matter was especially painful to him, starting with nursery rhymes. Poems are made to be performed, to be sung out loud and given the dignity they deserve. Poems, he said, are religious experiences that deserve to be treated with respect.
 

Poetry was meant to be read out loud, to be sung, to be performed. Take that away and all you have is dry words – Kofi Awoonor at #SMHayfest

— Mugendi Nyagah (@IAmMugendi) September 21, 2013

 
When writing, he suggested that first drafts should be used as a guide. He was always editing his work until right before he needed to send it to the publisher, and even after it had been published, he still found edits that he made and incorporated in various edits. He also dedicated himself to popularizing poetry, even though he knew, and acknowledged with a laugh, that there was no money in it. Poetry, according to him, was art for its own sake.

Professor Awoonor was a champion of African literature, and he will be sorely missed. To honour him, I suggest you read some of his work. And every time you write, be true to yourself.

‘This Earth, My Brother’ and more of his work are available on Amazon.

Farewell, gentle soul.

Eric Mugendi.

Nairobi. 25th September 2013

Kofi Awoonor,

killed on Saturday, September 21, 2013

at the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, Kenya

Terror had struck once again.

The insanity of rage, and the rage of insanity

continue to ransack and ravage,

blatantly, pointlessly,

striking out against the innocent,

victimizing without any sense or reason,

alleging causes for which there is no justice,

aimless bloodletting without end.

The perpetrators of this latest violence

very obviously did not care

who came into the sight of their guns…

they simply aimed and fired

at anything or anyone who moved,

snuffing out the light of lives

like candles flickering in the wind,

massacring, maiming, murdering

indiscriminately,

targeting the young, the old,

men, women, children…

all of whom had done nothing

to warrant these insane acts

of revenge and retribution,

for things done by others…

in other places, at other times…

One of the many

who had been brutally mowed down

by hails of bullets fired from assault rifles,

the great Ghanaian scholar-poet

Kofi Awonoor.

They killed a poet,

but they could not kill his poetry.

The silenced a man,

but they could not obliterate

or invalidate his messages,

the many words he had written and spoken

in a life time of service

of the scholarship, literature

and culture of his country.

A man of peace had been struck down and taken

from those who loved and admired him.

The actions of the terrorists merely proved

that they could strike at will

and in a reign of terror,

to instill fear in the hearts

and minds of the innocent.

However, they failed

to prove a point

or serve a purpose

of real substance or meaning,

other than creating chaos,

and causing acts of absolute horror…

death and destruction,

pain and suffering,

senseless, brutal, violent, vulgar,

and utterly insane!

They killed a poet,

But they could not kill

his poetry!

His words will endure.

Gerhard A. Fürst

USA. September 25, 2013

NAIROBI, Kenya–I will travel to Ghana to be present at the burial ofKofi Awoonor. I will because he is a great Ghanaian poet.  I will because he is a remarkable African thinker and mentor. I will because he traveled to Jamaica from Ghana to bury my father, his dear friend and mentor, in 1984.  I will because he is my uncle, my mother’s cousin. Read the rest of this tribute to Kofi Awoonor by Kwame Dawes on Wall Street Journal