The Promise of Hope: New and Selected Poems, 1964-2013

Foreword / Kwame Dawes

Acknowledgments

In Retrospect: An Introduction / Kofi Anyidoho

From Herding the Lost Lambs (2013)

The Light Is On

The New Boy on the Block

Across a New Dawn

Songs of Abuse

To Feed Our People

To the Ancient Poets

Counting the Years

Once More

On the Gallows Once

Truth

What Brought Me Here?

What More Can I Give?

Those Gone Ahead

Up in the Garden

Xiansi, Pou Tou Dalla

I'll Raise a New Song

Remembrance

From Latin American & Caribbean Notebook (1992)

In Memoriam

Of Home and Sea I Already Sang

Of Home Once More

Rio de Janeiro: Fearful and Lovely City

Distant Home Country

Agra: January 21, 1989

Cuban Chapters

The Hero's Blood

Of Faith and Fortitude

The Orient Express

Betrayers

Havana, Cuba: The Free Territory of the Americas

A Caress

For Tenu and Afetsi: A Hymn

Of Niggerhood

A Death Foretold

The Prophecy from Iran

In Memoriam: Return to Kingston

Lover's Song

The Red Bright Book of History

At a Time Like This

Back with Sandino

Prayer

The Ancient Twine

Seatime, Another

Readings and Musings

Light Hours in Verse

Time Revisited

A Thin Echo of Time's Voice

"As Long As There Are Tears and Suffering, So Long Our Work Will Not Be Over," Jawaharlal Nehru"

The Girl that Died in Havana

Our Pride Alone

Dream-Again

New Rain

Birds on an Autumn Wire

Shamla Hills: Bhopal

Shamla Hills: Sanchi Temples

Childhood

Parting

From Until the Morning After (1987)

Life's Tears

So the World Changes

Life's Winds

Grains and Tears

Had Death Not Had Me in Tears

Act of Faith

I Rejoice

The Picture

For Ezeki

From The House by the Sea (1978)

tPart 1. Before the Journey

Poems, Fall '73

The Land Endures

Going Somehow

After the Exile and the Feasts

Some Talk of Lunar Virgins

Poem

Poetry

Departure and Prospect

When Going into Jail

Africa

Poem

Of Absence

Poem

Poem

Sequences

For Henoga Vinoko Akpalu

An American Poem

Another Lovers Song

Self-Portrait

Part 2. Homecoming… Poems from Prison

Homecoming

The Second Circle: Beginning Midnight, 5/1/76

On Being Told of Torture

The First Circle

Dream of Home

Revolution

To Sika on Her 11th Birthday

Revolution: A Chat with Ho Chi Minh's Ghost

Found Poem

Another Found Poem

The Place

Poem

Us

Love

Personal Note

Sea Time, Meaning a Pledge

The Will to Die

A Little Word

The Wayfarer Comes Home

From Ride Me, Memory (1973)

America

Harlem on a Winter Night

Long Island Sketches

To My Uncle Jonathan: A Song of Abuse

To Felicity, a Girl I Met in LA

Hymns of Praise, Celebration, and Prayer

Afro-American Beats

Etchings from My Mind

My Fathers Prayer

My Uncle the Diviner-Chieftain

To Sika

To Those Gone Ahead

From Night of My Blood (1971)

I Heard a Bird Cry

Night of My Blood

Stop the Death-Cry

A Dirge

More Messages

At the Gates

The Dance

Do Not Handle It

All Men My Brothers

Lament of the Silent Sisters

Hymn To My Dumb Earth

They Do Not Sound for Me

From Rediscovery and Other Poems (1964)

My God of Songs Was Ill

The Sea Eats the Land at Home

The Cathedral

What Song Shall We Sing

We Have Found a New Land

The Anvil and the Hammer

Rediscovery

The Weaver Bird

The Purification

The Gone Locusts

Songs of Sorrow

From This Earth, My Brother: An Allegorical Tale of Africa (1971)

The Making of the New Nation (Chapter 2a)

From Comes the Voyager at Last: A Tale of Return to Africa (1992)

Festival of Oneness

An Epilogue by Kofi Awoonor

Source Acknowledgments