One finds a poet who sounds less like his environment or the rest of his remaining works. One finds a horde of clannish poets who have resumed trapping their styles in the net of the other. One finds a literary community that has forgotten to produce the spirit-immersed poetry, the kind that broadly establishes the contaminant emotive will; not the kind that breeds a hive of self-importance—tributes and odes to self—that which undermines the vicarious role of pathos.
THE LENIENT POEM AND SUBTLE MEANING (an analysis by Oludipe Oyin Samuel)
A Big Airplane Crashed Into the Earth. I read Soyinka’s first collection of prison poems sometime in 2009. Categorically, I need not ‘push dumbfoundment to beg simplification; I hate a...
REVIEW: ‘SEVEN FLOWERS OF GRATITUDE’ POETS HELP US COME TO TERMS WITH THE ISSUES AND SUFFERINGS OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
These poets have clearly come to terms with the issues and sufferings the coronavirus pandemic wrought upon the world. They help us to come to terms with it as well.
REVIEW: FAITH’S CHAPBOOK ‘LAGOS DOESN’T SLEEP’ DRAWS INSPIRATION FROM WHAT IS FAMILIAR
Another unique thing about Emmanuel is that he draws inspiration from what is familiar. As such, Lagos Doesn’t Sleep stands out as a testament to how literature remains the eyes of our current events and a concubine to history.
THE CHANGING NARRATIVE OF TOUCH: A REVIEW OF DONNA OGUNNAIKE’S SPOKEN WORD PIECE ‘TOUCH’
“Touch” is a word, and in a larger sense of it – it is a language portraying relationship. Various cultures speak this language, it mirrors the relationship between the virus and human interactions. In Nigeria, amidst our diverse cultural beliefs and traditions, every ethnic group understands the underlying power of touch; from pouring libations to the gods, to exchange of greetings and other realities captured in this performance piece by Donna Ogunnaike called “Touch”
“FACEBOOK IS NOT A SAFE PLACE TO POST YOUR POEMS” & OTHER ISSUES FOR NIGERIAN POETS
Again, by saving your works and releasing them only on foreign platforms, you are inadvertently taking everything away from us and making us have to borrow access. Right now, we can no longer read anything from most of our good poets unless we first access them from foreign platforms.
WHY POETS TAKE SNIPER: AN ESSAY ABOUT SUICIDE AMONG WRITERS (by Sa’id Sa’ad Abubakar)
Today, we have seen numerous death of young promising writers by suicide. Exactly last year, we lost the talented Chukwuemeka Akachi, whose death spreads like a sandstorm. The same year, an online literary blog published the name of five young students writers who died by suicide.
ON NIGERIAN WRITERS, DEPRESSION & SUICIDE…
In reality, many people discover writing after suffering some physical or psychological discomfort that they want to talk about. Perhaps due to their social circumstances, these people cannot find a voice loud enough to reach the audience they want, or they do not even think anyone is willing to listen or able to hear them. Then they discover writing.
REVIEW: MAHE’S POETRY DROPS ‘NECESSARY MEANINGS’ IN LITTLE LINES & ENTHRALS READERS WITH CAREFULLY CHOSEN DICTION
Mahe’s poetry has the ability to drop necessary meanings in little lines, and of enthralling readers with carefully chosen diction.
REVIEW: TERENCE J. WALTER ‘INVESTED A LOT OF CREATIVITY’ IN ‘A POLICEMAN’S LOT’
Walter has assembled the most vivid of characters and personalities, history, geography and cities in A Policeman’s Lot. London comes to life as the narrator transcends one stage of his life to the other and the writer has done justice to both the story and the settings of the story which indulges us to go out looking to feel the settings, and of course as existent as the story itself.