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 34
... stars and swords of " Marshall of the World " twinkle with blind stars , crossing swords with enemy shadows And his voice , ah , his voice ! a true commandant's , turns his men tail or parrot with the creaking of a rusty gun , when he ...
... stars and swords of " Marshall of the World " twinkle with blind stars , crossing swords with enemy shadows And his voice , ah , his voice ! a true commandant's , turns his men tail or parrot with the creaking of a rusty gun , when he ...
Page 36
... stars earned not in battle fields nor for strategies of wars won but in the comfort of stolen power . May my loins sire only sons they shall be soldiers they shall all be generals and end my lingering envy . 10 December , 1987 Greed ...
... stars earned not in battle fields nor for strategies of wars won but in the comfort of stolen power . May my loins sire only sons they shall be soldiers they shall all be generals and end my lingering envy . 10 December , 1987 Greed ...
Page 51
... star out of the howling sky declare me the last legend of the century . All may turn from the evil of forbidden paths , -not this lady , with amulets in her skirts . You carved too close to bone , Maggie to stop a night of nemesis and ...
... star out of the howling sky declare me the last legend of the century . All may turn from the evil of forbidden paths , -not this lady , with amulets in her skirts . You carved too close to bone , Maggie to stop a night of nemesis and ...
Contents
For arts sake | 11 |
Poem to the child of my time | 32 |
Mandelas mantle | 41 |
Copyright | |
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