Fri, 09 Oct 2009 Feature Article

The Obama Serenades XX

Birthday Boy: Many Happy Returns

Black is
beautiful in
the eyes of
the black
beholder who
has been
ignored and
spurned and
morphed into a
brainless beast
of burden and
sex-fiend in
the wild and
wanton
fantasies
of blue-eyed
blond men
bored and
cloyed with
having had
too much
fun with
bimbo
blondes….

Opposites,
they say,
have no choice
but to attract
and torridly
latch one
onto
another,
like clam-shells
or bur on
a pile of
cloth,
even as
variety is
also known
to be
the spice
of life….

A mutt,
I recently
learned,
is the spawn
of a black
and
white
mating
game;
Aggrey knew
and said it
best,
jazz
is the
staple
song
of a
mutt,
even as
rhythm-and-
blues is
the very
heartbeat
of a
jiga-
boo….

Black is
beautiful
and
barrier-
breaking in
these Dis-
United States of
America;
black and
proud as
a peacock
frozen in
a frieze….

Forty-eight
is the magic
number;
at eighty-four,
life begins
to lose
its lusty
flair and
soon we are
back in
the raw
womb of
Earth,
where it all
began…

8/4/09

Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.

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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The Obama Serenades XX

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