When History Becomes Poetry TARES Oburumu’s Flora’s Love Colony begins with history but refuses to remain confined to the past. The poetry collection examines the forces that shaped Nigeria before, during and after British colonial rule, while connecting those historical experiences to questions still confronting Nigerians today. For Oburumu, poetry offers a way of recovering […]
A Collection Built Around a Difficult Question OGAGA Ifowodo’s Why Does God Need a Gun? begins with a question that challenges one of the most troubling contradictions in religious violence: why would human beings claim to defend an all-powerful God through violence? For Ifowodo, that question became the conceptual centre of a poetry collection examining […]
A Poetry Collection Born From National Unease JAMES Ngwu Eze’s Unbind Me Now emerges from a Nigeria marked by violence, displacement, social dislocation and uncertainty. Rather than retreating into private reflection, the poet turns outward, using the collection to engage the experiences of people living through difficult national realities. That approach has now placed the […]
NIGERIA’S poetry scene takes centre stage as James Ngwu Eze, Ogaga Ifowodo and Tares Oburumu emerge as the three finalists for this year’s Nigeria Prize for Literature. Their paths differ sharply, yet their shortlisted collections share a common interest in Nigeria’s troubled history, identity, violence and social realities. Eze, a poet, journalist and cultural organiser, […]