A Fine Chicago
Poet

I am a native of Accra; Ghana and I’ve been resident in the Chicagoland for 32 plus years. I drove a cab while completing my doctoral work at the Northern Illinois University, DeKalb. I wrote and executive produced ‘Chicago-Motions of Love’ and the fine poetry of Chicago from the inspiration I got in my conversation experiences with the business and leisure travelers to Chicago that I chauffeured.

 

And note this: Accra is a Sister City of Chicago.

 

One of the exciting experiences driving a Cab is the conversations I had with my riders. Navy Pier, which happened to be hot spot for many visitors and the museum campus were my favorite places to pick up fares. I usually would ask my riders how they feel, and what they think and like about Chicago.

 

It is quite remarkable what most of these visitors say about the city, almost to a cliché. Here are some of the responses I got: “Chicago is a clean and beautiful city.” “There are so many things to do here.” “The flowers are so beautiful, especially the tulips.” “It feels safe to walk around. It’s certainly big but not so overwhelming.” “The foods are great.” “The people are friendly.” With that response, I will usually ask a follow-up question, curiously to know what they actually meant by “people are friendly” “Well, in situations like the help you get with directions from people; the hotel concierge, the cab drivers; people saying hi to you when you’re walking around, it’s a great feeling, you know.” Every now and then they will compare Chicago to New York and some other city. One person puts it this way, “Chicago is not like New York and LA, New York is dirty, and the Cab drivers don’t talk to you.” 

 

Indeed, the feelings they convey when they make those remarks told me that the cleanliness, the friendliness, the atmosphere, and the sense of safety of the city are what give them the real satisfaction coming to Chicago.

 

It is these visitor remarks that inspired me to create, and executive produce the two songs for the Chicago-Motions of Love music recording.

​

Particularly, the inspiration for ‘Come to Chicago’ is that it is not automatic that people would come into a city and experience that clean, beautiful, and the friendliness of the environment. It is an intentional effort to make the city what it is, for its visitors to come and enjoy and feel that love. I wanted to do a song that represents that spirit. And so when you listen to the title track you will encounter this recurring word in the music, “lovebirds.” It is meant to be a metaphor alluding to all the entities within the city’s hospitality industry cooperatively working to ensure that Chicago visitors experience that unequivocal touch of love and care, and satisfaction. The metaphor of the song lyrically moves into the depths of things that characterize the activities of the lovebirds, their motions of love: “we’re spreading our wings, we’re breaking the blues; we’re moving with the motions of the wind; flying higher, back-to-back, hand in hand, soaring higher and higher.”  All these extend the intentionality in enlivening the experiences of visitors in Chicago. And so, the logic of the song is made: “When the feeling is not right, when you’re caught up with the fever of blues come to Chicago, listen to our music…”