Upon Their Faces – Poetic Reflections on the Nkyinkyim installation by Ghanian artist Kwame Akoto-Bamfo

And the sun pales in comparison to their smiles. And unwearied eyes and pride you can’t take. With strong hands and backs that don’t break. All around, a people coal to brown, with souls of gold and humble crowns, illuminate this corner of West African atmosphere. And the ground is laden with tiny fish that lie sun-drying. Stretching for as far as the eyes can see. Amid the scent of sea and humanity in sand and grit. Industrious tasks to complete before sundown.įishermen mend and stitch their nets. No grass growing beneath busy barren feet. As wood-burnt heat rises from these still filled grills. Happy people smoke fish at the wharf through the haze. Happy People – Ode to a fisherman’s wharf in Tema, Ghana (pronounced wah-chay), red red, and shito sauce. Arising to a new African sun that pales in comparison to the glory of the splendor I see in Madam Queen.ĬLUB BEER, made in Ghana, is a Ghanaian favorite along with jollof rice, fufu, banku, waayke That does not yield enough for sustenance and life.Īnd still, they rise when morning comes. Lying beneath the stars that honor their day-long strenuous labor and sacrifice. For some place to lay their heads besides the streets at night upon unforgiving beds with no pillows for their heads To the whispering of their souls that long for homes. Into the haze of traffic and this pressing crush of humanity without vanity. Madam Queen- A song to the girls and young women who work as head porters in Ghana and are known as the kayaye Amid the darting motorbikes that snake through traffic with reckless abandon. With the hum and buzz of traffic and hawking street merchants on the Spintex Road and across Accra. Something about the way this coastal African city rises. Where brown and coal and shades of coffee with cream form a chocolate rainbow of humanity. When the wind arrives to cool this ancestral land of melanin-skinned folk. There is something about the way Ghana embraces me at night. That fills my lungs with the taste of African breath, freedom and life that I have never known. There is something in the way the aura of this land washes over me daily when the morning comes. Causing me to explore more intensely the call that led me here on this sojourn to the Motherland.

Ghana is home away from home, deepening her hold. Of the way she moves me-grooves me-with mental and spiritual surety of being Black like me, here in this place that exists on the other side of my world. I call her Jazz.Īnd I could never rinse my soul of her sassy rhythms and sweet melodies. To Soul Music, Gospel, the Blues, and Jazz.

Healing the soul wearied by racial hate and shame, and the pain of that centuries-old river that flows with DNA Trauma of the souls of Black folk.īy sufferings that gave birth to the Negro Spiritual. She reaches the soul like the melancholy wail of Mile Davis’ horn. Beckoning African sun to her children across the Black Diaspora. Of music that builds to a screeching crescendo then suddenly disappears into silence. She is the sound of cymbals that come crashing down. Sometimes jagged and scratching the soul with dissonant chords that rise and fall. Something Special Called Jazz- A Song for Ghana Along rock-laden, sandy ocean shores where waves crash and roar.īut this one thing I do know: I miss Ghana. Her hold upon the soul that breathes her in with heaping inhalations. He shares poetic portraits and some of the hundreds of photos he took in Ghana, which will be featured in a forthcoming multimedia exhibit and public lecture titled, “Africa Calling: Portraits” Photo caption: SNAPSHOTS OF JOHN FOUNTAIN at work in Ghana as a 2021-22 Fulbright scholar to Ghana, where he visited Cape Coast and Elmina Castles, Jerry Johnson’s African Ancestral Wall in Prampram, Ghana, Ancestral Slave River, the Nkyinkyim installation by Ghanian artist Kwame Akoto-Bamfo and many other places-some of them featured in this photo collage.Ī 2021-22, Fulbright scholar, the author reflects on his time in Ghana, a year after returning to America.

Jazz music for deep sleep