The most sizeable portion of the Collection features Kofi Awoonor’s work. Audio, video, photographs and text are included from the period 1973 through 1992, the year of his keynote address to the African Studies Association Annual Meeting held in Seattle.
Awoonor was the last of the writers to appear during the Spring Quarter 1973 Seminar. He had completed the collection of poems, "Ride Me, Memory", and was close to the release of his translation and adaptation of a portion of the Ewe oral tradition, "Guardians of the Sacred Word: Ewe Poetry".
In 1978 Awoonor went into the University of Washington’s Instructional Media Studio to record what would become two videos, "Poetry and Comments" and "Songs of the Village". This was shortly after his release from prison and includes his reading of poems written in “that place”, as well as reflections on the primary forces shaping his writing prior to his arrest in Ghana in 1975. Audio and transcriptions are included for both videos.
Awoonor’s last video work on the UW campus occurred in 1985 with the telling of an Ewe story, "The Hunter and the Gazelle". In the video he tells this traditional tale in both Ewe and English.
Several audio recordings and drafts of other essays and lectures also are included in the Collection, each given to Karen Morell for future work.
From "Ride Me, Memory".
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From "The House by the Sea", prison poems.
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From "Guardians of the Sacred Word".
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From "The House by the Sea", prison poems.
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From "Night of My Blood".
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From "Ride Me, Memory".
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From "Night of My Blood".
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From "Night of My Blood".
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From "Night of My Blood".
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From "Ride Me, Memory".
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From "The House by the Sea", prison poems.
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