Fri, 27 Jul 2012 Feature Article

To My Uncle Tarkwa Atta – A Tribute (5)

And now
you must be
deeply relieved,
even thankful,
for such great
release –
now,
you have only
your own personal care
to mind;
now,
you have
the rest of time
to sleep and
oversleep
and rest
and relax
and join
the great feast
with the great ones;
for you have cheated
defeat as well as
the looming fear
of defeat,
and now
the greedy
bastard couple
are beside themselves
with shame
and ignobility,
for they have been forced
to pretend
they were full of
goodwill
for you –
and now,
their dreams
of shaming you
have turned into
heel-licking flames
of rabid hounds –
yes,
you have cheated
friends and
foes alike,
you have left them
heavy-hearted
and anguished
over their own
mortality,
you have also
been cured
of all your
worldly cares,
and now
you are fully set
to go
in a grand
style
like the
elected king
that you were
by the very skin
of your teeth;
for such
is the sweetness
of success won
in a bloody
street-fight;
a narrow victory
and then
the sweetest
of its kind –
7/27/12

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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To My Uncle Tarkwa Atta – A Tribute (5)

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