[New-Poetry] WorldPo: Nigeria

[Sigauke, Emmanuel]

Great argument. 

________________________________

From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of
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Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 1:20 PM
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: [New-Poetry] WorldPo: Nigeria


http://allafrica.com/stories/200712031006.html
Nigeria: Writing and the Nation - ANA Prizes and Canon Making

 
Vanguard (Lagos)
2 December 2007
Posted to the web 3 December 2007
Obi Nwakanma
Lagos
TWO weeks ago, the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) concluded its
annual convention at Owerri, the heartland city of the East. The various
prizes administered by ANA were also announced and the winners
proclaimed.

My own collection of poems, The Horsemen & Other Poems was on the
shortlist for both the ANA/Cadbury Prize and the ANA/Gabriel Okara
Prize. My collection did not win the prizes, both of which went to
Hyginus Ekwuazi's Love Apart. I have not read Ekwuazi's winning
collection of poems, but I feel certain that it deserves the prizes, and
I congratulate Ekwuazi, who has worked mostly in film, but who now has
shown his paces as a poet of considerable ability and perhaps even
significance.This is what the ANA prizes are all about: the affirmation
of the work of the contemporary Nigerian literary imagination, and
maintenance of the canon of Nigerian literature. I will come back to the
meaning of the Nigerian canon shortly, but I would like to draw
attention to developments preceding the announcement of the prize, which
for me, and I'm sure for many others, has the potential of detracting
from the significance of the Nigerian prize.

This specifically has to do with the poet, Niyi Osundare's sudden
withdrawal of his book, one of the three on the shortlist for
consideration in the ANA/Cadbury Prize.

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