DYING SUN

How does it matter

I remember or forget

the nights or lights

that stand still

in the dense fog

nothing visible

nor audible

the thundering planes

touch the ground:

it’s all game

of guess and vague

everyone

everything

even the tick

of the clock

this freezing hour

redolent of

crumbling echoes

I can’t divine vision

or loom up certainty

to mock follies

of dying sun

--R.K. SINGH, India

2013 INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE

SPLENDORS OF DAWN POETRY FOUNDATION

2013 INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE POEMS

TITLE:  I  AM A CHERUB

            I am cherub.                                                                                                                                                                                A winged child of peace. A new seed.   A voice.  A footprint.Sowing seeds of peace deep within.                                                                                                                                                                                                     

             Peace, that I be free.                                                                                                                                                                                                           

                         Peace that you be free.                                                                                                                                                                                   

                                   Peace that the world be free.

TITLE: COLOURS OF HEAVEN

Above the unpurged colours of heaven,we heard the peace song boom like sun-beams,                                                                                                                                                        spreading calm to drunken beats, and  a dance beyond the barns.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

TITLE:   PEACE ASLEEP

Peace has walked into sleep dauntless.Every shots, shouts and shame stab the dawn. In the drunken heart there is much foul data.The vain, vanquished and vandals cross old souls to purge our steps dead,as the mother of pain finds a nest.

TITLE:   WHO ARE YOU PEACE?           

Who are you?Who are you peace? Gloriously incomplete.The sky has not vanished like clouds, yet all path make the path where the sun and moon walk off each other.Broken trees, broken streams and broken birds,sit on pews here and there, singing to no one.Through the trenches. In the trenches season after season our arms have nothing left.                                                                                    Our minds sat here. Our minds sat there. Our minds sat everywhere.

Pilgrims in just about everything sang to no one.We saw tomorrow go into it with fire.                        Fear kept mosquitoes indoors aged and dreary.Everything, everyone, and everywhere flee from truth and beauty, row by row, round by round, it rains heavy fire.With being becoming being, we heard the souls voice back and forth.                                                                                                                         Our minds sat here. Our minds sat there. Our minds sat everywhere.

Our feet were as old as the sky when chaos walked into wrath.Our eyes listened to soaring sounds sucking just about everything, everyone and everywhere flee from truth and beauty,                 Tomorrow came frozen row by row, round by round, it rains heavy fire.                                         Brilliant anthills, walk past all plummet’s sound harmoniously. Yet a silent thunder burst. Souls with minds pregnant like the world drowned. Drown in being like clouds. Their scent blooms with flowers.                                                                                                                                                                         Our minds sat here. Our minds sat there. Our minds sat everywhere.

The trains ran fast and left smiles behind. All path match to fit all steps to heaven, where angels talk. A sacred whole.Who could with them?   Where is the part?  Where is the whole?                                  What a hot wind embracing us.When the dawn comes, who may own it? 

Some of the Spoken-word/Performance poetry by Young Splendors at  Accra Mall on 21/09/2013.    Poems written by: Ayo Ayoola-Amale esq.Muse of Poetic Harmony in Africa.                                                                                                    

Copyright2013 Splendors of Dawn.

                                                                                               .                                                                                                                                                                              

WE MOURN THE DEATH OF A POET & STATESMAN RIP PROF KOFI AWOONOR

PROFILE: Prof Kofi Awoonor, POET & WRITER

The Late Prof Kofi Awoonor

Kofi Awoonor was born on the 13 March 1935 in  Wheta,Ghana. He was a Ghanaian poet and author whose work combines the poetic traditions of his native Ewe people and contemporary and religious symbolism to depict Africa during decolonization.
He wrote his first poetry book while at the University of Ghana.  His first poetry book, Rediscovery. like the rest of his work, is based on African oral poetry.
He managed the Ghana Film Corporation and founded the Ghana Play House. He studied literature at the University of London. While in England he wrote several radio plays for the BBC.
He wrote his book titled This Earth, My Brother, and My Blood while he was in the USA. Awoonor returned to Ghana in 1975 as head of the English department at the University of Cape Coast.  Awoonor was Ghana’s Ambassador to the United Nations (1990 to 1994).

 SPLENDORS OF DAWN POETRY FOUNDATION

TRANSITION OF SEAMUS HEANEY  R.I.P

 

Sadly, Seamus Heaney has passed away. A great, bright light has gone out of the world: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-23895582

Seamus Heaney death: NI reaction

www.bbc.co.uk

Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness says he is shocked and saddened by the death of poet Seamus Heaney.

POET OF THE MONTH

Maya Angelou –

Maya Angelou (original name Marguerite Johnson) was born April 4, 1928 in St Louis, Missouri. Maya Angelou is one of America’s leading female contemporary Poets. However, Maya Angelou has also achieved much in the fields of theatre, acting, writing novels and also as a member of the Civil Rights movement.

Maya Angelou had a turbulent childhood but she was able to retell her experiences with great poignancy and effect in herbook ‘I know Why The Caged Bird Sings’ (1969) This book is a collection of stories from her childhood and this book made her one of the first African ‘ American Women to reach the best sellers list. ‘ I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings’ was also nominated for the National Book Award.

Despite the inequities of life as a child, Maya Angelou has been able to provide a positive message of humanity and hope. Maya Angelou has said that ‘ The honorary duty of a human being is to love’

‘ Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.’

From: Touched By An Angel

Maya Angelou married a South African freedom fighter and for a time lived in Cairo where she was the editor of the Arab Observer. However in the 1960s she returned to America and played a role in the civil rights movement. At the request of Martin Luther King she became the regional coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership. She has been asked to work on behalf of Presidents Carter (National Commission on the observance of International Women’s Year) and President Ford (American Revolutionary Bicentennial Advisory Council. In 1993 President Clinton requested her to compose a poem for his inauguration. This poem ‘On The Pulse of Morning’ was read by Maya Angelou at his inauguration, to much critical acclaim.

As well as a poet and writer Maya Angelou has had a productive career in TV and film. She has written several prize winning documentaries such as. ‘Afro ‘ Americans in the Arts’.

The popularity of Maya Angelou has in large part been due to her ability to write about the many experiences of life with a vivid and engaging style that absorbs the reader. As Sidonie Ann Smith states from Southern Humanities Review:

“Her genius as a writer is her ability to recapture the texture of the way of life in the texture of its idioms, its idiosyncratic vocabulary and especially in its process of image-making,”

Sources for quote: Gale Research

African American Literature Book Club

Biography by Tejvan Pettinger

Maya Angelou Poems

• A Brave And Startling Truth
• A Conceit
• Alone
• Caged Bird
• Equality
• Glory Falls
• Human Family
• Million Man March Poem
• On The Pulse Of Morning
• Passing Time
• Phenomenal Woman
• Savior
• Still I Rise
• The Lesson
• The Rock Cries Out To Us Today
• The Week of Diana
• These Yet To Be United States
• Touched By An Angel

View: Maya Angelou Poems

                                                                 

Maya Angelou – Biography

Awards for Maya Angelou

1966; Writer in residence at University of Kansas,

1970; Distinguished visiting professor at Wake Forest University,

1974, Wichita State University, 1974, and California State University, Sacramento,

1974; Professor at Wake Forest University, – a position she currently holds

1981. Northern coordinator of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1959-60; appointed member of American Revolution Bicentennial Council by President Gerald R. Ford,

1975-76; Member of National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year.

1992 Woman of the Year, Essence Magazine,

1994 Grammy (for recording of “On the Pulse of the Morning”),

• A Brave and Startling Truth (Random House, 1995),
• The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (1994),
• Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993),
• Now Sheba Sings the Song (1987),
• I Shall Not Be Moved (1990),
• Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? (1983),
• Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well (1975),
• Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie (1971), -(nominated for the Pulitzer prize.)

View: Selected Poems of Maya Angelou