{"id":21757,"date":"2013-09-26T15:44:04","date_gmt":"2013-09-26T22:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/?p=21757"},"modified":"2013-09-27T06:49:38","modified_gmt":"2013-09-27T13:49:38","slug":"r-i-p-kofe-awooner-the-weaver-bird-read-by-kwame-dawes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/2013\/09\/26\/r-i-p-kofe-awooner-the-weaver-bird-read-by-kwame-dawes\/","title":{"rendered":"R.I.P Kofe Awooner &#8211; The Weaver Bird Read by Kwame Dawes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<li><\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/1Awoonor-580.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/1Awoonor-580.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"1Awoonor-580\" width=\"580\" height=\"391\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-21759\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/1Awoonor-580.jpg 580w, https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/1Awoonor-580-300x202.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nR.I.P <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/books\/2013\/09\/i-will-say-it-before-death-comes-the-murder-of-kofi-awoonor.html\">Kofi Awoonor<\/a> (Letter from Nairobi: \u201cI Will Say It Before Death Comes\u201d Posted by Teju Cole &#8211; NewYorker)<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>On Saturday, September 21st, the Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor was shot dead at Nairobi\u2019s Westgate mall by terrorists. He was one of dozens of innocent victims of the massacre, for which the Somali group Shabaab claimed responsibility. I was about a mile away during the attack, giving a reading at the National Museum. During the reading, as word of the attack filtered in, people answered their phones and checked their messages, but, onstage and oblivious, I continued taking questions from the audience, including one about \u201cthe precariousness of life in Africa.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<li><\/li>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/culture\/hay-festival\/10326757\/Kofi-Awoonor-the-literary-world-pays-tribute.html\">Telegraph Obit<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nBook blogger Kinna Reads congratulated Professor Awoonor for his command of language, saying \u201cHe spoke Fanti as fluently as Ewe\u201d. Professor Awoonor\u2019s early poetry was heavily influenced by the dirge-singing traditions of his native Ewe tribe. \t<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<li>\n<p><> <> <> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"520\" height=\"400\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-yNlrkiiJnE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/art\/blog\/2013\/09\/poet-kwame-dawes-remembers-uncle-kofi-awoonor-with-reading-of-the-weaver-bird.html\">Kwame Dawes Reads The Weaver Bird<\/a><br \/>\nThe Weaver Bird<br \/>\nBy Kofi Awoonor<\/p>\n<p>The weaver bird built in our house<br \/>\nAnd laid its eggs on our only tree.<br \/>\nWe did not send it away.<br \/>\nWe watched the building of the nest<br \/>\nAnd supervised the egg-laying.<br \/>\nAnd the weaver returned in the guise of the owner.<br \/>\nPreaching salvation to us that owned the house.<br \/>\nThey say it came from the west<br \/>\nWhere the storms at sea had felled the gulls<br \/>\nAnd the fishers dried their nets by lantern light.<br \/>\nIts sermon is the divination of ourselves<br \/>\nAnd our new horizon limits at its nest.<br \/>\nBut we cannot join the prayers and answers of the<br \/>\n  communicants.<br \/>\nWe look for new homes every day.<br \/>\nFor new altars we strive to re-build<br \/>\nThe old shrines defiled by the weaver&#8217;s excrement.\n\t<\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>R.I.P Kofi Awoonor (Letter from Nairobi: \u201cI Will Say It Before Death Comes\u201d Posted by Teju Cole &#8211; NewYorker) On Saturday, September 21st, the Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor was shot dead at Nairobi\u2019s Westgate mall by terrorists. He was one of dozens of innocent victims of the massacre, for which the Somali group Shabaab claimed &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/2013\/09\/26\/r-i-p-kofe-awooner-the-weaver-bird-read-by-kwame-dawes\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;R.I.P Kofe Awooner &#8211; The Weaver Bird Read by Kwame Dawes&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}