A Poem and Video for Each of Three Great Volunteers at WWOZ: K Balewa, José Cruz, and Suzanne Corley
Followed by word from my long-time friend Sakura Koné, the Rootzmaster whose Train runs from midnight to 6:00 in the morning on Wednesdays over New Orleans' Community Radio-station for the Universe, W
Thanks again to you on Substack for the warm responses! Last week during WWOZ’s Spring Membership-Drive I posted a poem each about three volunteers. Two were show-hosts who gave hours each week to presenting music, K. Balewa and Suzanne Corley. The third, José Cruz, helped however he could. The post today adds more images and a video reading of each poem.
Please check out the faces below. These seem to me people blessed by their giving—the Power of Good. Maybe that’s why their voices and legacies also are beautiful.
Clinton Scott, Porsche Williams, Jeff Duperon, and K. Balewa in 1996.
K. Balewa
Every Wednesday morning over WWOZ,
The voice of K. Balewa
Sounded like Africa Brass,
Dulcet and strong,
Swinging and bold and kindly,
As he brought us selections from
John Coltrane, Sarah Vaughn, Abbey Lincoln,
Alvin Batiste, Nicholas Payton, Diana Krall,
Kidd Jordan, Donald Harrison, Jr.. Stan Getz,
George French, Germaine Bazzle, Chucho Valdes, Art Blakey, ...
And many, many more
Of that shimmering tapestry
Delivered up out of bondage,
Mélange, and freedom,
New Orleans still rippling out
Pilgrims’ triumphs
And wonders to a needy world.
K. Balewa also gave us the weather
At Louis Armstrong International Airport,
Exact as to degrees, wind-speed, and forecast,
And here too his measured, melodic,
Dulcet and strong voice sounded like
He was glad as Africa BrassTo perform a service.
K. Balewa, thank you,
Volunteer, for making the trip
From Gonzalez and after you drove Cab,
Every Wednesday morning.
Three hours
You gave us history
Of the most generous
And hence female art-form.
Player! Bearer!
Shimmering, you. too!
Smoking like you meant it!
K. Balewa, you another voice we’ll always hear.
First, April 2016
José Cruz
José Cruz,
Feather of light,
Hero like the General you so admire,
In your third-to-last month of life
You gave Maryse and me a portrait
Of Toussaint L’Ouverture
That you’d found in a shop
And then framed
With your cabinet-maker’s craft.
Cancer had by then
Bent you like a knife
Your back already broken.
Seven years! Seven years,
You endured, José Cruz,
That devouring of vertebrae
By claws and fangs and maws
Of cells become deathly,
And still you kept
That absurdly sweet smile, José Cruz,
That looked up from your crooked shoulder,
Like an angel with a secret
Too wise and delicious to tell.
Life is NOT fair
José Cruz, in its apportioning pain,
And yet suffering
May ennoble its vessel
With a closeness to God
Unattainable otherwise.
SOMETHING gave you
Your smile and care,
Ineffable as it’s indelible.
“How is Carmen?” you asked,
José Cruz,
And so we shall forever see
You peer up at us,
Above your hunched back,
You feather , you rock, you light.
First, March 2016
Suzanne Corley, photo by another great one, Kichea S. Burt. and also from WWOZ’s in memoriam web-page for Suzanne.
Suzanne with bike, photo by Mike Morgan.
Suzanne Corley
Suzanne rides tall in the saddle,
Bronze and copper,
Book of Kells and lapidary heralds,
All at once. The wind is her challenge
And her friend.
Suzanne, she’s so Romantic that it hurts.
Those Mountains that she had to leave
Still were her Grandma’s wit,
Fixed like a fox in gloaming.
Her paths to light admit no doubt.
She knew Brasil
Before its songs.
Books anywhere open to worlds unbounded.
"Beautiful voices” and ‘Beautiful songs,”
Suzanne played for us
On her ‘World Journey’ over WWOZ,
Saturday afternoon and evening
Castanets and Berimbau--
Dancing woman and dancing man—
Coils and folds and leaves that flare, faithful as the breeze.
Strange how long adventures tempted.
Strange how through care
Depths of love grow.
Strange almost to Celtic laughter
What her good-luck, bad-luck body
And unbowed will could bear!
Courage! Courage! Suzanne offered
The “Beautiful songs” she hoped
Listeners would enjoy,
And the next day, Sundays,
She and Mike gave parties,
Resplendant like her walls
Of Tropical Red, Orange, Greens, Amarela and Amarelo—
Oh, Mountains past that will still glow!
Courage and compassion are
Arrows married in Suzanne.
First, April 2021And a message from Koné for WWOZ.
Thursday, March 10, 2023, my long-time friend Sakura Koné was featured by New Orleans’ community-radio station WWOZ on O-Z’s website during its Spring Membership Drive.
Sakura is shown below with another show-host and long-time friend, Rick Wilkof. The photo is by KaTrina Griffin, WWOZs Membership Director. Sakura’s uplifitng words follow. You can check out the whole Web-page, direct, here—WWOZ—https://www.wwoz.org/blog/879381
Now to the poems inspired by the three volunteers. Below are Vincent Scott, Porsche Williams, Jeff Duperon, and K. Balewa in 1996 from Sticking Up For Children’s October 2022 tribute to volunteer DJs in New Orleans, and the portrait of Toussaint Louverture that José Cruz gave to Maryse and me, and a bird on a wire.
Thanks!