- How spoken word is rescuing poetry
By Anote Ajeluorou
AMONG the four genres of literature,
poetry has increasingly taken a backseat in Nigeria’s literary consciousness. For
spoken word artist and Director of Lagos International Poetry Festival 2015
making its debut, Mr. Paul Efe Azino, this is an unfortunate situation. He is
on a mission to rescue poetry from the fringes it has been consigned and put it
on the front row of discourse. The festival, scheduled to rock Lagos from
October 28 through November 1, has ‘Borderless Words’ as theme.
For
although social media is awash with poetry, the quality is suspect, as there is
little critique of it before it gets uploaded and inflicted on the public.
Azino’s poetry feast is here to provide some direction for upcoming poets
through master classes, schools’ visitations, workshops and seminars, adding, “There’s
relatively bad poetry on social media, but poetry feast will attempt to give
such poets a handle”.
Azino stated at a press conference last week
that Lagos International Poetry Festival would be the first true poetry of its
kind in West Africa on account of its comprehensive programming. Poets will
come from all over the world to participate, he noted. The festival is
dedicated to Prof. JP Clark, who will feature in a conversation with prose
humourist Mr. Chuma Nwokolo at University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos. Opening
cocktail for the festival will be at Freedom Park, with MUSON Centre, African
Artists Foundation, Bogobiri and UNILAG as other venues.
Azino stated that these were great times for
the arts and that poetry needed to tap into it, as it was growing by the day.
He said, “We want to see how we can create space for young people who are
showing a renewed interest and monetise poetry and the arts? Despite border
restrictions, how do we impact our global environment we’re having guests from
all over the world. We want to have poets from across generations.”
Some of those billed to perform include Lola Shoneyin,
Chuma Nkwolo, Jumoke Verissimo and Dami Ajayi, 2015 winner of Brunel University
Prize for African Poetry, Nick Makoha, Inua Ellams, two of South Africa’s most
prolific voices, Lebo Mashile and Natalia Molebatsi.
Canada-based Nigerian poet, Ms Titilope
Sonuga, the first young poet to perform at a Presidential inauguration, said
the festival presented her a fantastic platform to explode, adding, “It will
give young poets an opportunity to interact with Clark and other older poets
and learn from them”.
She gave a peep into what she will do at the
festival when she performed ‘I come from a place’ that is dedicated to Lagos,
her place of birth.
At the second edition of the festival next
year, Azino intends to launch the JP Clark Poetry Prize for Undergraduate
Students to encourage poetry at that level.
A spoken word poet, Azino
said a balance would be created during the festival so his preferred sub-genre
does not overshadow hardcore poetry. Accordingly, he said, “We want to carry
both sides of ‘on stage’ or performance poetry and ‘on page’ or poetry on paper
along at the same time. When people say poetry is dying, they mean poetry is
migrating from paper to the stage, which is performance poetry.
“In fact, ‘spoken word poetry’ is coming to
the rescue of ‘poetry on page’. Spoken word adds some level of colour, flavour.
Poetry of the future exists somewhere between the page and stage”.
He,
however, added that poetry on page is the foundation and even spoken word poets
needed to learn its rudiments. On the charge of spoken word poetry sometimes
veering towards being prosaic, Azino said that was somewhat true, as the poetry
was fleeting and so needs to be understood quickly by audience unlike the
poetry on page that gives opportunity of being reread.
Festival sponsor Nigeria Breweries Plc had its
Public Relations Manager Mr. Thomson Onwoka and Corporate and Media Brand
Manager, Mr. Edem Vindah. Vindah expressed his company’s gladness to be
partnering another genre of the arts, adding, “We are good supporters of
entertainment in Nigeria. It’s not unusual for us to be partnering with Lagos
International Poetry Festival. We hope it will encourage and inspire young
poets and that it will inspire other corporate organisations to support the
arts”.
No comments:
Post a Comment