Monday, 13th February, 2023, 3 pm, Poets in Nigeria at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka will be hosting the phenomenal Nigerian poet, Mr. James Eze, for an evening of exquisite poetry reading. The guest author will be reading from his debut collection of poetry, dispossessed, to an audience of intellectuals, scholars, students, poets and poetry enthusiasts at the Seminar Hall of the Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria. Recall that Dispossessed won the ANA Poetry Prize in 2020 and was longlisted for the country’s most prestigious literary prize, the Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2022.
Coming a day before Valentine’s Day and as can be deduced from one of the e-fliers, reflections on love and romance, especially as a poet’s everlasting muse, will not be lacking on Monday evening. This is to be expected as the poet had in Dispossessed dedicated one section of his three part collection to love. The section titled ‘Transgression’ speaks of a kind of love that is “a sweet song/that rings beyond the metallic melody of a gong/like a peal of thunder/to herald the liquid exultations from a smitten heart.”
But love will not be the sole focus of the evening. A peek into the official order of events for the evening reveals that there will also be a review of the collection by members of PIN, UNN and that the author will have a conversation with another Nigerian writer and reader, Ugochukwu Anadị. Can poetry speak to our pain today? is a question, amongst many others, the two will try to answer.
In what promises to be an excellent evening of poetry, the poet will also be revealed as a musician, one who believes that poetry should be out there, listened to by all and sundry and of that means making music out of poetry, then so be it.
The Poets in Nigeria Initiative was put together, roughly eight years ago, by Sir Eriata Oribhabor, who has been referred to on many occasions as the “merchant of poetry” in Nigeria, as a means of getting together young Nigerian poets who are undergraduates. The Initiative has continued to grow having connect centres in different tertiary institutions across the country. The UNN Connect Centre is one of such connect centres. A student-led association under the elderly guidance of Greg Mbajiorgu, an associate professor of Theatre and Film Studies in the institution who is himself a poet too, the association has decided to start inviting established poets in the country whose poetry they adore and Mr. James Eze is the author to launch what the association hopes will turn into a poetry reading and discussion series.
You’re duly invited to this feast of good poetry.
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