Profile
"Okantah explores what it means to be a black poet during hard times....
There is wisdom in his words and a love for Africa in his heart. [His] poems cry like the birds we once heard in Eric Dolphy's horn."
--E. Ethelbert Miller
A soul-mate, husband, father and grandfather, Baba Okantah was born Wilbur Thomas Smith, Jr. in Orange but raised in Vaux Hall, New Jersey. He is the author of Afreeka Brass (1983), Collage (1984), Legacy: for Martin & Malcolm (1987), Reconnecting Memories: Dreams No Longer Deferred (2004), Muntu Kuntu Energy: New and Selected Poetry (2013), Cheikh Anta Diop: Poem for the Living (2017/1997) Guerrilla Dread: Poetry for Hearts and Minds (2019) and A Black Voice in the Wilderness: From the Okantah Blog (2024). A Professor and Chair of the Department of Africana Studies at Kent State University, he is also Director of the Ghana Study Abroad Program. A 2019 BMe Community Genius Fellow, he is the recipient of the 2021 Great Lakes Black Authors Expo, Alice Dunbar Nelson Literary Achievement Award. Leader of the Muntu Kuntu Energy Ensemble, Okantah has performed with the Iroko African Drum & Dance Society, the Eric Gould Trio, the Cavani String Quartet and with Vince Robinson and the Jazz Poets.
