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' performed

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 Brass

To 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 2021

And 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.