Remembering Prof Atukwei Okai: Oswald Okaitei celebrates poet's 82nd posthumous with a poem

Professor Atukwei Okai who carved his fame with hard work and passion that gave poetry recognition in our part of the world would have been 82 today. Soon, it’s been almost five years since he walked off the shores of mortals to join our long gone ancestors. Nevertheless the ripples from his wonderful contributions towards building the African literary landscape keep him all around us.

On this day, one of his mentees, Nii Okaikoi Okaitei [Oswald] who is being at its best to keep the poetry torch glowing as taught by the great wordsmith chooses to bring a rose of poetry to his spirit to mark his birthdate. He writes….

ON YOUR BIRTHDATE
(To Professor Atukwei Okai)
And now, we plow
The darkness above the wide & silently roaring ocean
And all we hear are the footfalls
Of your indelible rhythm & passion in wander

And though the night
Is ‘umbraly’ dark, we still see
The footprints
Of your soles on the back of the silent waves

At last, we confirm:
Today, ‘who no know go know’;
That you are
The rhythm which runs into our ears at the strike of the ‘dondo’…

That you are
The ancient cast of the resurrected stage
Who re-birthed & outdoored
This sacred shrine where we now pour our libations to the god of words…

That yes, you are!
— you are the Nile that never finishes even at where it ends!

*Umbraly—‘adjectivised’ form of ‘Umbra’. *“who no know go know”—those unaware would be (popularly used by Prof. Atukwei okai) Dondo—African Talking drum

Oswald Okaitei ©


Atukwei [John] Okai (15 March 1941– 13 July 2018) was a Ghanaian poet, cultural activist and academic. His early work was published under the name John Okai. With his poems rooted in the oral tradition, he is generally acknowledged to have been the first real performance poet to emerge from Africa, and his work has been called "also politically radical and socially conscious, one of his great concerns being Pan-Africanism".

His performances on radio and television worldwide include an acclaimed 1975 appearance at Poetry International at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, where he shared the stage with US poets Stanley Kunitz and Robert Lowell, and Nicolás Guillén of Cuba.

Prof. Atukwei Okai is of one of Ghana & Africa’s greatest poets & Spoken word artistes (deemed as the Father of African Spoken word). He was the Secretary-General of the Pan African Writers’ Association and former President of the Ghana Association of Writers.