Synopses & Reviews
Kofi Awoonor, one of Ghanas 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 Awoonors most arresting work spanning almost fifty years.
Selected and edited by Awoonors friend and colleague Kofi Anyidoho, himself a prominent poet and academic in Ghana, The Promise of Hope contains much of Awoonors most recent unpublished poetry, along with many of his anthologized and classic poems.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.
Review
"Valuable for its vivid attempts to make new, locally rooted forms."—
Publishers WeeklyReview
“A celebration of the work of one of our important world poets for readers both inside and outside Africa.”—From the foreword by Kwame Dawes
Review
“We pay homage to Kofi Awoonor as a poet not only with a profound vision and articulation of the world, our world, but also with a gift of words that is at home in poetry, in prose, in critical literary studies, and equally in major essays about our African, our human condition.”—From the introduction by Kofi Anyidoho
Synopsis
Over nearly fifty years, Eleanor Ross Taylor has established herself as one of the foremost southern poets of her generation. Captive Voices gathers selections from Taylor's five previous books along with a generous helping of new poems. Scintillating, unusual, passionate, and profound, the poems range from contemporary pieces about a bag lady on a bus, to historical pieces about settlers held hostage and a wartime nurse caring for British wounded, to intensely personal poems about her dislike for her grandmother and worries about her son. The title poem -- a real tour de force -- explores the notion of captivity on several levels as it speaks to the suffering we all endure, some of which is of our own making. Decidedly regional yet determinedly universal, the poems in this remarkable volume, along with a foreword by Ellen Bryant Voigt, attest to the singular talent of a woman justly described as "a poet of genius."
About the Author
Kofi Awoonor (1935–2013) was a diplomat and a professor of comparative literature at numerous universities, including the University of Ghana. He is the author of several volumes of poetry, including Night of My Blood; Ride Me, Memory; The House by the Sea; and The Latin American and Caribbean Notebook. His collected poems (through 1985) were published in Until the Morning After. Kofi Anyidoho, a poet and scholar, serves on editorial boards for several journals and has been a guest editor of Matatu, a journal of African culture and society that is published in Amsterdam.