Tue, 11 Aug 2009 Feature Article

The Obama Serenades XVI

“Gramps was a free spirit”

The choice
of sires
is not ours
to make,
never
could have been,
anyhow…

our being
in space
and time
could never be
one of choice,
our being
in space
and time
is one of
sheer
destiny
to whose
truck
we are
tied…

love
beyond
black and
white and
yellow and
brown and
red…
a critter
studiously
attuned
to its own
sacred course,
a critter
on prowl
uncoaxed,
a critter
that knows
no bounds
and thus
attuned
to none…

a wop,
a bum,
a schmuck;
it makes not
a whit
of care;
the gradual
and deliberate
and insistent
flow of
the good,
the bad
and middling;
a diamond
in the rough
to be worked
and revealed
in the nick
of time…

wayfarers
we all
are,
fluttering
and
ferrying
and
flying
without cease
till
there is
nowhere else
to go,
and then
we sleep
the sound
and silent
sleep
of saints,
leaving
in our trail
and to our
scions
the giant wings
of memory
to ferry
forth…

what we are
is often
what we claim
to be,
what we do
is largely
dictated by
what means
of existence
we possess
and where
we find
ourselves
in space
and
time…

7/24/09

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.

Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD, taught Print Journalism at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City, for more than 20 years. He is also a former Book Review Editor of The New York Amsterdam News.. More He holds Bachelor of Arts (Summa Cum Laude) in English, Communications and Africana Studies from The City College of New York of The City University of New York, where he was named a Ford Foundation Undergraduate Fellow and the first recipient of the John J. Reyne Artistic Achievement Award in English Poetry (Creative Writing) in 1988.

The author was part of the "socially revolutionary" team of undergraduate journalists at City College of New York (CCNY) of the City University of New York (CUNY), who won First-Prize certificates for Best Community Reporting from the Columbia University School of Journalism, for three consecutive years, from 1988 to 1990.

Born April 8, 1963, in Ghana; naturalized U.S. citizen; son of Kwame (an educator) and Dorothy (maiden name, Sintim) Okoampa-Ahoofe; children: Abena Aninwaa, Kwame III. Ethnicity: "African." Education: City College of the City University of New York, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1990; Temple University, M.A., 1993, Ph.D., 1998. Politics: Independent. Religion: "Christian—Ecumenist." Hobbies and other interests: Political philosophy.

CAREER: Ghana National Cultural Center, Kumasi, poet, 1979–84; Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, worked as instructor in English; Technical Career Institutes, New York, NY, instructor in English, 1991–94; Indiana State University, Terre Haute, instructor in history, 1994–95; Nassau Community College, Garden City, NY, member of English faculty. Participant in World Bank African "Brain-Gain" pilot project.

MEMBER: Modern Language Association of America, National Council of Teachers of English, African Studies Association, Community College Humanities Association.

AWARDS, HONORS: Essay award, Nassau Review, 1999.Column: Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

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The Obama Serenades XVI

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