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 18
... hearts ' languid earth - grandmother burned her love on your fevered forehead , and sought to fertilise her heart for your flight - timed feet with her daily spread of ash and tears . But we all crave happiness , and though for every ...
... hearts ' languid earth - grandmother burned her love on your fevered forehead , and sought to fertilise her heart for your flight - timed feet with her daily spread of ash and tears . But we all crave happiness , and though for every ...
Page 60
... hearts throbbing in common joy of each being the other , opening and closing to breathe curative air is abundant life ... heart defy mathematical formulas its equations find balance in the salted breath of your fresh fruit mouth . I run ...
... hearts throbbing in common joy of each being the other , opening and closing to breathe curative air is abundant life ... heart defy mathematical formulas its equations find balance in the salted breath of your fresh fruit mouth . I run ...
Page 66
... hearts ' secret colours in a world shrouded in sham and shadow . The space you left behind heaves with the heaviness of land and water which between us have stretched their arms to plant acres of silence . I plod through its vastness ...
... hearts ' secret colours in a world shrouded in sham and shadow . The space you left behind heaves with the heaviness of land and water which between us have stretched their arms to plant acres of silence . I plod through its vastness ...
Contents
For arts sake | 11 |
Poem to the child of my time | 32 |
Mandelas mantle | 41 |
Copyright | |
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