Homeland & Other PoemsIfowodo was a frontline student leader in the early eighties and is a lawyer and civil rights activist. In 1996 he was a writer-in-residence at the Heinrich Boell Foundation. He was imprisoned between 1997 and 1998 and was subsequently adopted by PEN. This is his first collection of poetry which won the 1993 Association of Nigerian Authors Poetry Prize. Many of the poems are responses to politics; or spring from the tensions between writing political poetry, or art for art's sake, and other competing subjects of poetry, such as romantic love. The poet, quoting Neruda, first asks the reader expecting a poetic celebration of his natural world to 'come see the blood in the streets'. In the section section he writes tributes to Tracey Chapman, Winnie and Nelson Mandela and Margeret Thatcher ('the butcher'). The subject of the third section is the rediscovery of romantic love, amidst and beyond turmoil and oppression. |
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Page 23
... We shall see revolution's whisper rumble with the potency of drum and wind , we shall see the tables turn two legs burnt out with the fire of fertile fury . 1 September , 1991 Our eyes are born again Daily , our eyes are 23.
... We shall see revolution's whisper rumble with the potency of drum and wind , we shall see the tables turn two legs burnt out with the fire of fertile fury . 1 September , 1991 Our eyes are born again Daily , our eyes are 23.
Page 24
Ogaga Ifowodo. Our eyes are born again Daily , our eyes are born again to sorrows wider than the world : the cooking pot is home of spiders and lizards are landlords of the kitchen affirming the death of fire in countless nods , who ...
Ogaga Ifowodo. Our eyes are born again Daily , our eyes are born again to sorrows wider than the world : the cooking pot is home of spiders and lizards are landlords of the kitchen affirming the death of fire in countless nods , who ...
Page 61
... eyes are the kitchen stoves whose fires will never quench not even in Noah's flood , your eyes are where we may roast stones to bread for famished mouths . Your breast , milk - mellon multiplied to cure the thirst of multitudes enough ...
... eyes are the kitchen stoves whose fires will never quench not even in Noah's flood , your eyes are where we may roast stones to bread for famished mouths . Your breast , milk - mellon multiplied to cure the thirst of multitudes enough ...
Contents
For arts sake | 11 |
Poem to the child of my time | 32 |
Mandelas mantle | 41 |
Copyright | |
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