“Of all my 20-something books of poetry, none has confronted me with a more challenging combination of the urgency of content and complexity of execution than this new one… There is something deeply spiritual, almost religious, about the mission and the message of the poems, and the many ways they have turned out to be denizens of that vital interface between the ecological and the cosmic’
EMERITUS Professor of English at the University of New Orleans, U.S., Niyi Osundare, will entertain audience with his lyrical poetry at an evening in his honour, where he will read from and sign copies of his latest offering ‘GREEN: Sighs of Our Ailing Planet.’ Tagged ‘An Evening with Professor Niyi Osundare’.
The event, starting at 4pm, will hold on Sunday February 20 at Plot 2&3, Water Corporation Drive, Landmark Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Guests will also join up virtually via zoom:
ID: 549 525 9466
Passcode: KULTURE
Jointly organised by the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) and Roving Heights Bookstores, the session will have the poet laureate reading sections from the collection before a live audience that would converge at the Roving Heights’ outlet.
A statement by CORA Programme Directorate says, ‘GREEN: Sighs of Our Ailing Planet’, published by Commonwealth Books in conjunction with Black Widow Press, released in January, “is a compilation of poems reflecting on the environment and the current spate of odds and challenges facing its survival, especially with the perennial disrespect visited on it by humans.
“Inspired by the spate of environmental crises hitting the world, from the Amazon wildfire to the desert encroachment in North Africa to the shrinking of the Lake Chad basin in his home country Nigeria, the collection urges readers to reflect on the endangered beauty of nature.”
The statement quoted the Nigeria preeminent Poet laureate as saying, “Of all my 20-something books of poetry, none has confronted me with a more challenging combination of the urgency of content and complexity of execution than this new one.”
The author of such other famous collections as Songs of the Marketplace, Random Blues, Early Blues and others, continued on the content and nature of his latest work, GREEN… “I daresay the existential imperative of its content has been responsible for the pain that came with its composition and the uneasy relief I now feel upon its completion. There is something deeply spiritual, almost religious, about the mission and the message of the poems, and the many ways they have turned out to be denizens of that vital interface between the ecological and the cosmic.”
Osundare, widely revered for his lyrical lines and verses, and about the most laureate-d poet of his generation, has published over 18 collections, four plays, a book of essays, numerous monographs and articles as well as over 70 journals and magazines across the world. He has received many prizes and awards, including the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) prize, the Cadbury/ANA Prize (twice), the Commonwealth poetry prize, the Noma Award, Tchicaya U Tam’si prize for African poetry (Africa’s highest poetry award), among others.
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Profile
According to Wikipedia:
Niyi Osundare is a leading African poet, dramatist, linguist, and literary critic. Born on March 12, 1947 in Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria, his poetry is influenced by the oral poetry of his Yorùbá culture, which he capaciously hybridizes with other poetic traditions of the world, including African American, Latin American, Asian, and European. Osundare is a champion of free speech and his creative and critical writings are closely associated with political activism, decolonization, black internationalism, and the environment. He is the recipient of numerous prizes, including the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Poetry Prize, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Tchicaya U Tam’si Poetry Prize, and the ANA/Cadbury Poetry Prize (twice). In 1991, Osundare became the first Anglophone African poet to win the Noma Award (Africa’s most prestigious book award), and in 1998, he was awarded the Fonlon/Nichols Prize for his “excellence in literary creativity combined with significant contributions to Human Rights in Africa.” In 2014, he was admitted to the National Order of Merit, his country’s highest honor for intellectual distinction and creative achievement. Osundare is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of English at the University of New Orleans.
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Publications
- Songs from the Marketplace (1983)-
- Village Voices (1984)-
- The Eye of the Earth (1986, winner of a Commonwealth Poetry Prize and the poetry prize of the Association of Nigerian Authors)-[25]
- Moonsongs (1988)-
- Songs of the Season (1999)-
- Waiting Laughters (1990, winner of the Noma Award)-[26]
- Selected Poems (1992)-
- Midlife (1993)-
- Thread in the Loom: Essays on African Literature and Culture (2002)-
- The Word is an Egg (2002)-
- The State Visit (2002, play)-
- Pages from the Book of the Sun: New and Selected Poems (2002)-
- Early Birds (2004)-
- Two Plays (2005)-
- The Emerging Perspectives on Niyi Osundare (2003)-
- Not My Business (2005)-
- Tender Moments:Love Poems (2006)-
- City Without People: The Katrina Poems (2011)-
- Random Blues (2011)-
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- Literary prizes and awards
- First Prize, Western State of Nigeria Poetry Competition (1968)[10]
- 1981 Major Book Prize and Letter of Commendation, BBC Poetry Competition (1981)[11]
- Honorable Mention, Noma Award for Publishing in Africa (1986)[12]
- Honorable Mention, Noma Award for Publishing in Africa (1989)[13]
- Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Poetry Prize (1986) [14]
- Joint-Winner, Overall Commonwealth Poetry Prize (1986)[15]
- Kwanza Award (1991)[16]
- Noma Award for Publishing in Africa (the first Anglophone African poet to receive the award) (1991)[17]
- Cadbury/ANA Poetry Prize (Nigeria’s highest poetry prize). Also won the maiden edition in 1989 (1994)[18]
- Fonlon/Nichols Prize for “Excellence in Literary Creativity Combined with Significant Contributions to Human Rights in Africa”; African Literature Association (ALA)’s most distinguished award) (1998)[19]
- The Spectrum Books Award to The Eye of the Earth as “One of Nigeria’s Best 25 Books in the Last 25 Years” (2004)[20]
- The Tchicaya U Tam’si Prize for African Poetry (regarded as Africa’s highest poetry prize) (2008)[21][22]
- Nigerian National Order of Merit Award (Nigeria’s highest award for academic excellence) (2014)[23][24]
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