African Poet Research Articles

The reality of poetic structure in modern African literature written in Arabic language Analytical descriptive study

This research ends with an explanation of the poetic structure of African poetry written in Arabic. The aim of the study is related to knowing the new poetic structure of African poetry, which can only be achieved after knowing the poetic structure of the Arabs. It is known that ancient Arabic poetic structure proceeds from the initial introductions to the basic purpose of the poem, as mentioned by critics, and we find a multiplicity of themes within it. As for new poetry, it has its own structure which differs. of the traditional structure in terms of linguistic aspect, forms and themes. African literature written in Arabic knew these literary facts, and African poets paid attention in their poetic productions to the new poetic structure which differs from the vertical structure of poetry. Using poetic models, we were able to explain the poetic structure of old and new African poetry written in Arabic.

People’s English in the Poetry of Mzi Mahola and Vonani Bila

Black poets and various wordsmiths in South Africa played a critical role in liberating the country. Several of these artists wrote in indigenous languages, but during the 1960s and 1970s some protest poets expressed their opposition to oppression in English. These artists also played a pivotal role in ensuring that the outside world became aware of apartheid suppression. Other critics have, however, questioned the role of the English language for the masses that surrounded these artists. It is also important to understand how these artists perceived their role in their society as English poets. The article focuses on two South African poets, Mzi Mahola and Vonani Bila, whose recent poetry examines the current struggles, joys, and happenings in their communities. The article focuses on how these two poets use English to express their experiences. Furthermore, the themes explored in the article reveal the commonalities that may exist among “black English poets” in South Africa. More than three decades after the demise of apartheid some themes have pervaded their writings as new struggles have emerged. Furthermore, People’s English continues to be a vital tool in expressing black and human emotions in post-apartheid South Africa.

The Weeping Earth: Entangled Humanism, Precarity, and Imaginaries in African Eco-Poetry

The ecological visions of two African poets and their portrayal of the precarious condition of the environment in Africa are discussed in this article. Their nostalgic reflections on the idyllic image of the continent before anthropogenic activities degraded its fertile greenery also received major attention. Zakari Musa’s Elegy for the Earth (2020) and John Ngong’s The Tears of the Earth (2019) are critically analysed to expound the poets’ temporal triangulation of ecological discourse in Africa. I adopt Nigeria and Cameroon as models of African ecological space to interrogate the poetic contemplation of eco-precarity, temporality, and a vision of a new Africa built on human-nature interdependency and the green economy imaginary. Drawing on insights from ecofeminism and other relevant conceptual perspectives in environmental humanities, I examine sundry ecological topoi, including the politics of gendering and anthropomorphising the environment, the effects of the politics on nature, and the possibility of educating the African mind through the focalisation of precarity in African ecological poetry. I argue that the poets’ romanticisation of nature offers them an opportunity to intensify their education project by emphasising nature's contributions to life sustenance, while warning that human beings are self-destructing because of their insensitivity to climate change.

Exploring ecofeminism, ecocriticism, aquapoetics, and environmental humanities in Gabeba Baderoon's poetry

In this article I focus on Gabeba Baderoon's engagement with nature and the ecological nuances in her poetry. Baderoon is an accomplished South African poet with four poetry collections to date: The Dream in the Next Body (2005), The Museum of Ordinary Life (2005), A hundred silences (2006), and The History of Intimacy (2018). These poetry collections sustain Baderoon's ecofeminist sensibility as she engages with South Africa's eco-environmental challenges. In expanding the scope of how ecology impacts on poetry, I strive to illustrate how Baderoon's poetry is intimately bound up with the tropes of environmental humanities, ecofeminism, ecocriticism, and aquapoetics. I interrogate Baderoon's engagement with ecological concerns in South Africa. Previous critical works about her poetry often discount how her poetry creatively harnesses ecopoetic tropes to illustrate the problematics of ecological concerns, climate change, and environmental crises. Rather, they often fixate on the portrayal of racial politics of apartheid as it culminated in the poverty of black people in her poetry. Interestingly, Baderoon does not enforce a strict and total division between these thematic concerns in her poetry collections. I argue in this article that, within the framework of commitment to ecological values, Baderoon explores the relationship between human and non-human agencies in her poetry. Arguably, the conception of human relations with the environment enables Baderoon to advocate for the protection of plants, animals, and water resources for a sustainable ecosystem.

‘Ungazilanda in so many ways’ – Theory-making in African languages

Background: In this interview, conducted over Zoom on 13 February 2023, Robyn Tyler (RT) is in conversation with Athambile Masola (AM) and Nondwe Mpuma (NM). Both Athambile and Nondwe are published South African poets as well as full time academics. Athambile published ‘Ilifa’ in 2021 and Nondwe published ‘Peach Country’ in 2022. The transcript of the interview, which has been edited by all three authors, follows, interspersed with reflections by Robyn on the content (in italics).

An analysis of the effects of history in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission poetry

Scholars raise 2 salient questions regarding poetry in post-apartheid South Africa. One is whether new poetry emerged in the post-apartheid South Africa, and the other is whether poetry produced during and after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is capable of capturing the imagination of the reading public without resorting to the bigotry of Black versus White. Literature highlights the need for South African poets to move away from using historical facts as the basis for making literary representation. We acknowledge that the use of historical facts as the basis for literary representation of societies may be seen as insensitive to the victims of the injustices of the past practices in highly politically polarised communities. At the same time, we argue that historical narratives with positive ideological intent can heal wounds and unite a nation. To justify this position, we adopted a 2-fold perspective: firstly, we investigated the effects of using history as the basis for literary representation and, secondly, we examined the extent to which post-apartheid South African poets may use history as a necessary tool to enforce unity and a sense of forgiveness.

The Pan-African Gorée Institute at Thirty: A Tribute to Breyten Breytenbach and the Power of the Imagination

Abstract Amid mounting assaults on political freedom and self-determination – both on the African continent and further afield, the work of the Pan-African Gorée Institute for Democracy, Development and Culture in Africa is more urgent than ever. This article reflects on the first thirty years of the Institute’s existence. It pays special attention to gorin’s creative projects, developed under the motto ‘Imagine Africa’, and reflects on South African poet Breyten Breytenbach’s formative role in the establishment of gorin’s cultural activities. The article concludes with a call for renewed engagement with gorin’s pan-African democratic endeavours.

‘Multiple belongings’ in Zoë Wicomb’s ‘My Name Is HannaH’ (2005)

This article examines the short story/essay ‘My Name is HannaH’ (2005) by South African-born writer Zoë Wicomb, focusing on its generic hybridity, its translocal quality and its deeply intertextual structure. Retracing the life and works of the South African poet Arthur Nortje through the artifice of fiction, Wicomb exposes the discursive and relational nature of space and identity. By analysing the story’s extremely heterogeneous intertexts and its playful generic inbetweenness, I seek to show how Wicomb refuses any form of categorization or fixed notion, exposing, rather, the seams and fissures of the textuality of reality. Ultimately, I argue that the thematic and formal features of the selected narrative can foreground the relationship between world literature and the short story as a liminal, cosmopolitan and mutable genre, particularly appropriate for the representation of the interconnectedness of our society.

Constructivist Referents in Oumar Farouk Sesay’s ‘The Song of the Women of My Land’

The purpose of the research was to examine the constructivist referents in Oumar Farouk Sesay’s poem ‘The Song of the Women of My Land’. This required an analysis and understanding of the referents (terms that clearly and indirectly refer to persons, things or events) and whether the referents were used in the poem to express grief by women. The research questions were as follows: a) Does the poet use referents that suggest the death of traditions that celebrate old women, song bards, and songs from the past more than any other word? b) Is the poet more likely to employ poetic allusions to indicate negative constructivism? and c) Is the poem’s use of prosodic features related to the message? This study used computational and content analysis methods, which incorporate a careful poetry-reading critical approach, to identify and calculate constructivist referents. The referents were then manually broad-coded to include whole lines and verses. The exact words, phrases, and sentences related to the topic were coded and their frequency was determined. These were calculated by counting the number of times a referent appeared. The themes were then selected and interpreted, with a focus on relating them to the poem’s constructivist viewpoint. Finally, the main prosodic elements of the poem, as well as the referents that create them, were established. The results show that most referents by African poets are used to emphasise that traditional culture is dying and that the referents romanticise the fleeting nature of beauty in poetry and the pacifying effects of rural pastimes.

The Wandering Minstrel in Contemporary Nigerian Literature: A Study of Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo and Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s Poetry

The art of minstrelsy is very prevalent in traditional African society. Minstrels abound in these societies and they are mostly regarded as singers, musicians or reciters of poems. They are notable for their itinerant nature which makes them familiar with the goings on in their immediate societies. Even with the transition of most African societies from oral to written culture as a result of colonialism which introduced the Western system of education in Africa, the activities of these minstrels have not ebbed. Instead, it has found renewed expression on the pages of the collection(s) of poetry of contemporary Nigerian and by extension, African poets. This paper studied two collections of poetry of the poets under study; Akachi-Adimora-Ezeigbo’s Heart Songs and Waiting for Dawn and Ezenwa- Ohaeto’s The Voice of the Night Masquerade and The Chants of a Minstrel. It employed Formalism (New Criticism) theory in the analysis of these works. This paper showed that Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo writes from the angle of a wandering minstrel which affords her the opportunity to permeate different segments of her society. Ezenwa-Ohaeto on the other hand employed, not only the masquerade minstrel personae in his collection of poetry, The Voice of the Night Masquerade but equally structured the work on the circular movement associated with the entrance and exit of the Night masquerade. Also, he equally writes The Chants of a Minstrel from the angle of the mad man and itinerant minstrel persona. The research concludes on the note that these contemporary Nigerian poets studied have succeeded in continuing the art of minstrelsy prevalent in their cultural milieu even as they incorporate their wandering/itinerant nature in their works.

Love's Remit / WhatsApp Message at 9:37 p.m. Interrupts Bach, and: Prayer Rug

Love's Remit / WhatsApp Message at 9:37 p.m. Interrupts Bach, and: Prayer Rug Tsitsi Ella Jaji (bio) Love's Remit / WhatsApp Message at 9:37 p.m. Interrupts Bach harpsichord rejigsfingers. still nave's true north:Soli Deo Gloria _____ face south to pray. coltan'sglare sheds light—a burstappendix on hold. fees first. mothers clasphands, thrust green into the ether:what redeem first meant. swipe left for WesternUnion. saved name and numbermoves money. swift enough? flash screen at doctor—mother goading Hippocrates'soath. this world comes third. her mother, sister to myfather, mothered me asfemale fathers must, then left a house oforphans. my daughter's fifthand my first, born in 2018. her first will not dieon our watch. she must not die.keep watch over us. [End Page 21] Prayer Rug when i say i willpray for you, i mean this:i'll go for a walk in my lone language.tongues of fire will give sorrowthe slip. or lie. gaps of reason i'm on my knees, heartin sack. dull or just dead tired,sculling on my phone. or i'm moving stones,planter pots, and rods of muskon indigo cloth. i am feeling withall i have got—huddlinghuman into you. this is ubuntu,i suppose. ubuntu thoughtsand prayers. [End Page 22] Tsitsi Ella Jaji tsitsi ella jaji's poetry collections include Mother Tongues (Cave Canem/Northwestern Press Prize 2018); Beating the Graves; and Carnaval (a chapbook in the New Generation African Poets series). She teaches English and African/African American Studies at Duke University, and is the author of Africa in Stereo: Music, Modernism and Pan-African Solidarity. Copyright © 2023 Tsitsi Ella Jaji

Thomas Pringle: “the beginning of a future that has not arrived”

In his recent (2020) book, Matthew Shum offers an important rereading of the life, work and contemporary significance of Thomas Pringle, the Scottish South African poet and activist. The book’s challenge stems from three interrelated lines of energy. First is the author’s tracking of Pringle through the three locations of his activity: Scotland, the Cape, London. Second is the argument that Pringle was not from birth or early conviction the liberal champion he is remembered as in South Africa. Third, Shum warns against seeking in Pringle a model for the settler presence in post-colonial South Africa today. A comparison with two near-contemporary Scottish poets, fellow “Borderers”, who both also had colonial experience, leads this essay to a conclusion that acknowledges Shum’s account of the challenge our reading of Pringle offers to South Africa today.

‘European bays of hope’: Trans-Mediterranean fatalities and African migration crisis in selected migritude poems

This article discusses the tragic deaths of African migrants on the Mediterranean Sea, especially the 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwreck where close to 400 African migrants drowned. Apart from the Lampedusa tragedy, other migrant shipwrecks occurred in Malta in 2007 and 2014; Mediterranean in 2009, 2011, and 2015; Libya in 2009, 2014, and 2015; Catania in 2015 as well as Crotone in 2015, leaving thousands of Africans fleeing privation, violence and wars in their respective countries dead. The article uses Everett Lee’s push-pull and Chris Brown’s centre-periphery models to expound the hypothesis that migration from developing countries is primarily induced by their enforced integration into the capitalist world market economy and the dependency roles assigned to their population. It argues that the capitalist world system is skewed to engender inequality among countries of the world, thus creating a dominant, wealthy core and a subservient, impoverished periphery. Using selected poems of established and up-and-coming African poets, it interrogates literary representation of African migrant crisis, the politics of European border control, complicity of family remittances and the role of effete leadership in African migration crisis.

Social Issues in the Poems of Twentieth-Century West African Writers

West African poetry has depicted many aspects of the life of the community, and this is reflected in the odes of many West African poets. Because his poems are directly related to their own lives and the lives of people in society. West African Arabic poetry gave great importance to this aspect, and poets discussed it in their divans. Social poetry is to convey the life of society in all its forms and aspects, and to touch on the lives of people in various fields and the issues that concern them. From this point of view, this research -by using the socio-historical method - aims to examine the details of the social life of West African society and to reveal the social relations and traditions between individuals by examining poetic texts on social life. The importance of this work is due to the fact that it contributes to the recognition of some aspects and different manifestations of social life in West Africa by examining the poems of poets who touch on social aspects. This research answers two questions: What are the most important social issues addressed by the regional writers? Does social poetry reflect the reality of African society as it is? In the research, many social issues, including the positive and negative phenomena that the local poets dealt with in their poetry divans, were mentioned. Among the most important positive themes, there are behaviors that are appreciated in society, such as benevolence to parents, respect for science and teachers, fraternity and social solidarity, justice, and social assistance. As for the negative issues and problems that social poetry struggles with, these include poverty, unemployment, bribery, injustice, corruption, drug abuse, and betrayal. The research is limited to Senegal, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Benin from 16 countries in the West African region. Because the Arabic poems written in these countries differ from those written in the rest of the region in terms of quantity, quality, and style. It contains poems of prominent poets from these countries. These include Malian poets Yacob Doucoure and Amr Abdulatif Sacko, Senegalese poets Tijan Gay, Davud Adekeleken, and Tijan al-Hac Mansur Sy, Burkina Faso poet Ghanami, Ghanaian poet Mohamad Rashad, Benin poets Sulaiman Maysuna and Musa Babatandi, and Niger poet Ali al-Ashly. There are many distinguished poets as for the reasons for the preference of these poets; they gave more importance to social issues compared to other poets in the region and frequently mentioned these issues. However, his poems were written in very plain language and syllabic meter.

Of Divination Tray and the Search for Utopia: A Postcolonial Reading of Okinba Launko’s Selected Poems

Primordial oral literary forms have always been very central to the evolution of modern African literature. Arguably, these forms have impacted on modern African poetry, not only on account of their recurrence in the works of poets, but also as important indices in current poetry studies and criticism. Contemporary African poets have since stretched the limits and aesthetics of these forms to emphasize their relevance in the postcolonial space, following after the Negritude poets who set the antecedent in the use of Africa’s primordial forms,. This paper, using selected poems from Okinba Launko’s Dream-Seeker on Divining Chain (1993), Commemorations (2007) Seven Stations Up the Trays Way (2013), discusses the different tropes and manifestations of oral forms in modern African poetry. The writers isolate the poet’s use of Ifa, the Yoruba divinity muse, to comment on the dilemmas of the postcolonial space. The paper concludes that the dialectic prism of Okinba Launko’s poetry exteriorizes a neo-negritude template that sustains the relevance of primordial forms in African poetry.

Latitude

Research Article| May 01 2022 Latitude D. M. Aderibigbe D. M. Aderibigbe D. M. Aderibigbe is from Lagos, Nigeria. His debut book of poems, How the End First Showed (2018), won the Brittingham Prize in Poetry and a Florida Book Award, and it was the finalist for the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poets. He has received fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, James Merrill House, OMI/Ledig House, Ucross, Jentel, and Boston University, where he earned an MFA in creative writing. His poems have appeared in The Nation, Callaloo, jubilat, and New American Writing, among other publications. He is currently a PhD student in English at Florida State University. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google the minnesota review (2022) 2022 (98): 44. https://doi.org/10.1215/00265667-9563793 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation D. M. Aderibigbe; Latitude. the minnesota review 1 May 2022; 2022 (98): 44. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00265667-9563793 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll Journalsthe minnesota review Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2022 D. M. Aderibigbe2022 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

City Profile: Addis Ababa

City ProfileAddis Ababa Mahtem Shiferraw (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution panorama of the capital city of ethiopia, addis ababa IF YOU SEE this city for the first time, it may seem as if it has just sprung to life overnight, such is its chaotic charm; it sits atop an elevated earth at three thousand meters above sea level, surrounded by mountaintops covered in lush eucalyptus forests. It once boasted of inhabiting an awfully dormant seismic region, and one can still witness its rapacious past, through the still-active geysers infesting the lower neighborhoods of Filwoha. The air is cool and crisp, though it will get substantially thick and smoke-filled, especially as you make your way into the heart of the city, where it will come fully alive, bubbling, bustling, a clear sign of a place that has outgrown itself over the last few decades. Truthfully, Addis Ababa is a city with many, many hearts, depending on where you're coming from and where your passions lie. There are neighborhoods like Mercato and Shiro Meda, which are always swarming with merchants, sellers, and folks of all kinds, filled with the latest trends in textiles and goods, always loud, always welcoming. Then there are old neighborhoods, like Piassa, with its fine line of theaters, bakeries, cafés, and jewelry shops, bringing ancient charm to a new city. Or newer and hip neighborhoods, such as Bole, which has become the commercial center of the city, and a reflection of its swift and nauseous modernization, with its glassy-eyed skyscrapers, balmy roads, and pristine-looking small boutiques and spas. Or perhaps one could venture into the iconic Meskel Square, its quiet force reminiscent of Tahrir Square in Cairo or Tiananmen Square in Beijing, at times filled with protesters in the evenings or marathoners in the early mornings, and at times scooped out of itself, hollowly staring out into the depths of the city, both an eyesore and a third eye to those who wish to fill its corners and make their voices heard. Of course, the real charm of the city comes from the peripheral neighborhoods such as Mekanisa or Yerer Ber, the latter of which I grew up in; in their earliest days, these were filled with large and thick forests, and wild animals, surrounding the city with the same village-like enchantment one gets when visiting the nearby towns. But over the last couple of decades or so, these neighborhoods have outgrown themselves as the city has too; instead of its forests, one can now boast of its futuristic buildings, its all-encompassing malls, the outrageous number of cafés, which seem always endlessly populated. But within this, a city that has been furiously building and rebuilding itself, are also its ancient pillars; over one hundred embassies and consulates peppered throughout the neighborhoods, trade schools and small colleges, art galleries, museums, and so many adebabay, squares in large and small neighborhoods, all equally holding the bone of the city. But if there is one thing Addis is known for, it is actually for its mixed cuisine; whether you are craving a spicy kategna, a buttery kitfo, or simply wanting an elaborate breakfast, there is something for everyone, and that's when you really see it—the bustling of it all, the chaotic beauty of the city, not only engrained in its new and old neighborhoods, but in what it is able to bring together; the pulsation of it, the liveliness, the familiar sounds of chatter in different languages, the gurshas, the wafting of spices, coffee beans, and new pastries, springing new life into an ancient city that has yet to be bound as such. [End Page 5] Mahtem Shiferraw Mahtem Shiferraw won the 2016 Sillerman Prize for African Poets. Her collections Fuchsia and Your Body Is War were published by the University of Nebraska Press (see WLT, Nov. 2016, 87, and WLT, Summer 2019, 80). She is the founder of Anaphora Literary Arts, a nonprofit organization that advocates for writers and artists of color. Her new collection, Nomenclatures of Invisibility, is forthcoming from BOA Editions (2023). Copyright © 2022 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of...

The Use of Language and Thematic Concerns: A case of Five Selected African Poems

This study is a critical analysis of the language and themes used by the under-listed five African poets: The Cathedral by Kofi Awoonor, Troubadour by Dennis Brutus, Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka, I Will Pronounce Your Name by Leopard Seder Senghor, And If You Should Know Me by Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali. Its main thrust is, therefore, the isolation and discussion of the elements of language and the themes that make up the artistic framework upon which their individual poems are based. The writer employs Critical Race Theory as the framework for this work. It looks at how individually and collectively they tackle the theme of racism as well as their choices of language in expressing their contempt for this social canker. The study narrows down to a discussion of the artistic positions of the authors within these two basic narrative variables. An examination of the various artistic strategies employed to create a multi-plicity of poetic fronts and their attendant scenes as well as backgrounds are what these divisions of the study target. It is this primacy of the artistic theme that this study dwells upon. The study intends to condemn this social injustice that brings separation rather than cohesion to the human race. It is recommended that the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service should organise an essay competition on these African Poets' books to bring social cohesion among students in Ghana and Africa as a whole.

‘Then … Horror! Horror!': Laughter, Terror and Rebellion in the Unpublished Plays of H.I.E. Dhlomo

ABSTRACT The New African poet, playwright, and intellectual H.I.E. Dhlomo is often cited as one of twentieth-century South Africa’s most important cultural figures. In contrast to his celebrated theoretical writings, however, Dhlomo’s actual literary work tends to receive mixed reviews from scholars. This paper seeks to reassess Dhlomo’s much-maligned use of Romantic and Gothic tropes by focusing on two of his lesser-known plays: Men and Women and The Expert. These plays, which date from towards the end of Dhlomo’s playwriting career, have never been published, yet reveal a great deal about both the nature of his literary project and the conditions of Black cultural production in segregation-era South Africa. Indeed, I argue that these plays engage in some of the most radical social critiques found anywhere in pre-apartheid South African drama, and, furthermore that the melodramatic and incongruous elements of these works are essential to their intended impact. Having experienced segregation-era South African society as an unfolding nightmare, for H.I.E. Dhlomo laughter and horror were intimately related. Ultimately, I contend that Dhlomo’s linkage of laughter to the supernatural and the Gothic marks an important moment in South African history, illustrating powerfully the dashed hopes and aspirations of the New African generation within the context of tightening white philanthropic control.

The Politics of Protest in the Post-Apartheid Poetry of Seitlhamo Motsapi and Mxolisi Nyezwa

This paper critically examines the manifestation of protest agitations in post-apartheid South African poetry. The paper considered the insightful reflections of two South African poets on the influence of the apartheid administration and other forms of racial profiling and segregation. It is pertinent to note that the paper does not only record the outburst of these writers against apartheid; the crux of the paper is channeled towards the exposition of the perspectives of the selected poets about the traumatic experience of apartheid and the obnoxious nature of the post-apartheid experience. One collection of poetry from Seitlhamo Motsapi and Mxolisi Nyezwa was selected for critical and literary analysis. The paper considers the expression of disaffection by writers in their portrayal of the struggles for socio-political sanity and socioeconomic equanimity after the dehumanizing apartheid regime. The paper posits that writers should continually engage the thesis of post-apartheid and evoke the consciousness of the masses to the nefarious realities of their circumstances. The paper concludes that Africans need to realize their distinctions and peculiarities by looking inwards and reflecting on new ways to chart a new course for future generations.