Examines the state of African poetry today, the continuing influence of Africa’s pioneer poets, today’s new generation of poets, and their work in written poetry and in the spoken word, continuing oral indigenous traditions.
Almost half a century after ALT 6 and thirty-three years after ALT 16, what is the state of poetry and poetics in Africa? This volume of
ALT highlights major developments and continuities in the practice of the art of poetry in the continent. Contributions analyse new frontiers in the traditional African epic and the Yoruba
oríkì genre and innovations in form and theme, such as ‘spoken word poetry’ shared on digital media and pandemic poetry in the wake of COVID-19. They compare and contrast the work of Romeo Oriogun, Christopher Okigbo, and Gabriel Okara and of T.S. Eliot and Kofi Anyidoho. Other essays examine the complexities of translation from Ewe into English and the development of oral African poetry, underscoring its dynamism and the centrality of performance. The volume also includes interviews with poets Kofi Anyidoho, Kwame Dawes, and Kehinde Akano and tributes to Ama Ata Aidoo. Altogether, it highlights the richness and vibrancy of contemporary praxis and points to future directions in the field.
Table of Content
EDITORIAL ARTICLE
Oral and Written African Poetry and Poetics –
ERNEST EMENYONU
ARTICLES
A New Frontier for African Heroic Saga: The Sahara Testaments by Tade Ipadeola –
KOFI ANYIDOHO
Nigeria’s Insta Poetry: Cultivating Inward, Ideological Activism, Revitalizing African Orality and Re-defining the Art of Poetry –
OLUWAFUMILAYO AKINPELU
A New Direction in Contemporary Nigerian Poetry: The Pandemic Poems of Tanure Ojaide and Kola Eke –
OGAGA OKUYADE & EDAFE MUKORO
History and the Call of Water in Romeo Oriogun’s ‘Nomad’ –
IQUO DIANA ABASI
Voice, Identity, Tradition in Postcolonial Modernism: T.S. Eliot and Kofi Anyidoho from the Perspectives of Posthumanism and Post-Deconstruction –
MILENA VLADIĆ JOVANOV
Personal Reflections on Niyi Osundare, Oríkì Praise Tradition, and the Journey Motif in:
If Only the Road Could Talk –
ADETAYO ALABI
Lost and Gained in Translation: Navigating the Contours of Kofi Anyidoho’s Bilingual Poetry –
MAWULI ADJEI
Poetry and Performance: The Spoken Word Poetry as a Reincarnation of African Oral literary Tradition –
PARAMITA ROUTH ROY
INTERVIEWS
ALT Interview with Prof. Kofi Anyidoho – Scholar, Critic, & Award-winning Poet –
ERNEST EMENYONU , CHIJI AKOMA, AKACHI EZEIGBO, OBI NWAKANMA, ROSE SACKEYFIO, CHINYERE EZEKWESILI, AND IQUO DIANA ABASI
Interview With Kwame Dawes –
KADIJA GEORGE
(Re)echoing a Collective Trauma in Nigerian Poetry: An Interview with Kehinde Akano –
ADEWUYI AREMU
TRIBUTES
Ama Ata Aidoo: Ghana’s Literary Treasure: A Tribute to Ama Ata Aidoo (March 23, 1940 – May 31, 2023) –
ROSE A. SACKEYFIO
I Mourn Ama Ata Aidoo, the Author of ‘A Woman must be Foolish for a Marriage to Work, though a bad Marriage Destroys the Soul’. A Tribute to Ama Ata Aidoo (March 23, 1940 – May 31, 2023) –
ALEXANDER OPICHO
LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
THREE POEMS
‘A Memorial for KAMAU BRATHWAITE An Africa – Africa Diaspora Dialogue’, ‘For Willie Keorapetse Kgositsile’, ‘A Song for Nyidevu’ –
KOFI ANYIDOHO
‘From Freedom to Free Doom’ (Poem) –
ADEMOLA ADESOLA
‘To The Memory Of Aunty Toriomo’ (Poem) –
RACHEL OLUWAFISAYO ALUKO
‘I Swallow Fufu’ (Poem) –
JEROME MASAMAKA
TWO POEMS
‘No Door, No Roof’, ‘Bowls for Alms’ –
MARINUS YONG
‘No peace’, ‘th E b Est t Each Er’ –
VICTOR TEMITOPE ALABI
‘As I Watched Her Dying’ (Poem) –
ERNEST EMENYONU
‘The Mysterious Examination Paper’ (Short Story) –
IFEOMA OKOYE
‘The Ignored’ (Short Story) –
MATRIDA PHIRI
REVIEWS
Salami-Agunloye (ed),
Retelling History: Restaging African Women
in Drama and Film –
CAROLYN NUR WISTRAND
Chika Unigwe,
The Middle Daughter –
ROSE SACKEYFIO
Ọmófọlábọ̀, Àjàyí Ṣóyinká and Naana Banyiwa Horne (eds.),
IMMIGRANT VOICES IN SHORT STORIES: Health and Wellbeing of African Immigrants in Transnational and Transformative Encounters & Spaces –
ELIZABETH ONOGWU
Yaw Agawu-kakraba
, The Restless Crucible –
NONYE AHUMIBE
Kofi Anyidoho,
Seed TIME –
MAWULI ADJEI
Isidore Diala,
The Truce –
IRENE ISOKEN AGUNLOYE
Irene Isoken Agunloye,
Disposable Womb –
INIOBONG UKO
About the author
Paramita Routh Roy has an MA in English Literature from the University of Calcutta, India. Her research interests include African Literature with special emphasis on Women’s Writings, Black Feminism, Masculinity Studies, Gender Studies and Postcolonialism.
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