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I've heard people say that it was the Soyinka, Clark - and later, the Funso Aiyejina and Odia Ofeimun - generation that wrote very political poetry. Naija poets today are writing trauma/ grief, they say. However, it's heartwarming to know that this is not true:
This generation of poets are making politically conscious work. Maybe it's because of the EndSARS protests and the many conversations we are having as regards our basic human rights, our rights to a decent life in this country led by men who have lost their sense of shame -
This year Naija poets gave us outrightly political poems. I should do a thread of some of my favourite political poems by Nigerian poets, poems published in 2020.
So, here we go.
First: "It Is Impossible to Live" by @pamilerinjacob, published in @PalettePoetry. In the heat of the protest, Egbon Pamilerin wrote a number of very political poems, poems that carried the heat of the Grief. This poem is one of them. https://www.palettepoetry.com/2020/11/11/it-is-impossible-to-live/
First: "It Is Impossible to Live" by @pamilerinjacob, published in @PalettePoetry. In the heat of the protest, Egbon Pamilerin wrote a number of very political poems, poems that carried the heat of the Grief. This poem is one of them. https://www.palettepoetry.com/2020/11/11/it-is-impossible-to-live/
Next, "Too Much Wahala in this Country" by @bn_yusuff. Brilliant and memorable poem, written very plainly. Using repetition to impress its purpose. https://www.rattle.com/too-much-wahala-in-this-country-by-abdulbaseet-yusuff/
And there's this poem by @olaitanhumble. I love the moments in this poem, and the force of it - from the epigraph from Egbon @adedayo_agarau to the last line clipped from a CNN report.
Then "Isla Verde" by @SonOfOlokun, published @PalettePoetry. Romeo has a kind of romantic relationship with places, & with poetry he interrogates the history of places, entering into a conversation with the past to allow us to understand the present. https://www.palettepoetry.com/2020/11/30/isla-verde/
As in Romeo's poem, @Michael_Akuchie's poem on @Unrest_mag does almost the same thing. Forty-nine years after the Civil War, Mike writes: "Whatever building standing now is the outgrowth of dead children." Presenting us with "the ghost of our conscience". https://collectiveunrest.com/2019/08/07/the-spirit-of-a-war-sleeps/
"Self-Portrait as Itolia" by @isjonespoetry, published @glass_poetry. Like the poems that come before this, this poem tells us: "history repeats itself". The poem moves brilliantly, & is quite blunt. But, yes, "he" deserves to go to war & never return.
http://www.glass-poetry.com/journal/2020/november/jones-self.html
http://www.glass-poetry.com/journal/2020/november/jones-self.html
And "Beast Protocol" by Egbon @Salawu_Olajide. It opens with the image of a mother sending flower GIFs to her son, & then there's the image of screaming men. This poem is one of longing for a country that is brutal, as well as a kind of prayer for the country to be well.
This poem by Onyekachi Iloh, "I Listen To the Version of a Lil Wayne Track Where the Words Niggas, Fuckin’, Shit, Dick, Ass, Bitch, and Pussy Have Been Bleeped Out" - @PalettePoetry.
This poem! https://www.palettepoetry.com/2020/11/13/i-listen-to-the-version-of-a-lil-wayne-track-where-the-words-niggas-fuckin-shit-dick-ass-bitch-and-pussy-have-been-bleeped-out/
This poem! https://www.palettepoetry.com/2020/11/13/i-listen-to-the-version-of-a-lil-wayne-track-where-the-words-niggas-fuckin-shit-dick-ass-bitch-and-pussy-have-been-bleeped-out/
