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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Contents
Untold terrors are gathered | 12 |
Our eyes are born again | 24 |
Her bed is vacant again | 42 |
Copyright | |
9 other sections not shown
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Common terms and phrases
anger arms asked August battle bear beast bed is vacant begin beneath bitter bleeding blind blood bones break breath broken brows carved cast child clean colours count crocodiles cross daily dance death December deep dust dying earth evil eyes face fading faith fear feet fire flesh flowing gathered graves grow guns hand harvest head hear heart heat hope horns January kill laughter lay dying leaves light living look marched mark memory mouth muscle needing night pain past paths plead POEMS poetry poison politicians prize rain rising rivers roads running sadness sand season seek serve shadow soldier song Soon sorrows soul space stars stone streets surer taste tears teeth terror things thirst tongue tree truth turn voice walk walls winds wounds
Bibliographic information
| Title | Homeland & Other Poems |
| Author | Ogaga Ifowodo |
| Publisher | Kraft Books, 1998 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | May 30, 2008 |
| ISBN | 9782081957, 9789782081957 |
| Length | 69 pages |
| Subjects | › Poetry / African |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |