Frank Kobina Parkes

Who is Frank Kobina Parkes?

Frank Kobina Parkes was a Ghanaian journalist, broadcaster and poet. He was the author of one book, Songs from the Wilderness, but is widely anthologised and is perhaps best known for his poem "African Heaven", which echoes the title of Carl Van Vechten's controversial 1926 novel N*gger Heaven, and was selected by Langston Hughes for inclusion in the groundbreaking anthology of African writing An African Treasury. Parkes' poetic style, an intelligent, rhythmic free verse brimming with confidence and undercut with humour, is believed to owe much to the Senegalese poet David Diop, one of the pioneers of the négritude movement. Reviewing Songs from the Wilderness, Mbella Sonne Dipoko said: "Mr Parkes is one of the fine poets writing today about Africa and the world." The book was hailed as "...a landmark not only in Ghanaian poetry but in African poetry as a whole".