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 2
... Run Ebereonwu : Suddenly God was Naked Tunde Olusunle : Fingermarks Joe Ushie : Lambs at the Shrine Chinyere Okafor : From Earth's Bedchamber Ezenwa Ohaeto : The Voice of the Night Masquerade ; joint winner , 1997 ANA / Cadbury poetry ...
... Run Ebereonwu : Suddenly God was Naked Tunde Olusunle : Fingermarks Joe Ushie : Lambs at the Shrine Chinyere Okafor : From Earth's Bedchamber Ezenwa Ohaeto : The Voice of the Night Masquerade ; joint winner , 1997 ANA / Cadbury poetry ...
Page 27
... running with the equities of their song they found dustlaid footpaths loamier to grow roots for iroko ** heights For questions rose sharper than arrows to perforate learned hoods , questions rose like tongues of fire to lick dainty ...
... running with the equities of their song they found dustlaid footpaths loamier to grow roots for iroko ** heights For questions rose sharper than arrows to perforate learned hoods , questions rose like tongues of fire to lick dainty ...
Page 60
... run my forefinger round your dewdrop face , drawing the world in invisible paint , plain only to you and I : you are the world for which clay was " tinsel " raw material . One moment of a deepening look into each other ' 60.
... run my forefinger round your dewdrop face , drawing the world in invisible paint , plain only to you and I : you are the world for which clay was " tinsel " raw material . One moment of a deepening look into each other ' 60.
Contents
For arts sake | 11 |
Poem to the child of my time | 32 |
Mandelas mantle | 41 |
Copyright | |
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