Ikeogu, poetry: ANA calls for submissions

In a bid to immortalise Ikeogu Oke, poet, literary troubadour and winner of the 2017 NLNG Literature Prize Prize (Poetry), the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) has announced a call for submissions of tribute poems in his honour. A release by the association said, “The Editors of this forthcoming volume are looking for 51 poems […]

In a bid to immortalise Ikeogu Oke, poet, literary troubadour and winner of the 2017 NLNG Literature Prize Prize (Poetry), the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) has announced a call for submissions of tribute poems in his honour.

A release by the association said, “The Editors of this forthcoming volume are looking for 51 poems (in tandem with his age at the time of death) for inclusion in a book that will be released in the first quarter of 2019.

“It will be essentially a collection of poems strictly on him and his art or related to poetry and mortality or immortality. The poems should be structurally concise, thematically-relevant and strategically poetic. Only 51 poems will be selected in a qualitative first come first serve tradition and so interested contributors should immediately send in one or not more than two poems of which one may be selected on or before the deadline of 31 December, 2018.”

The late Oke was known as a jolly good fellow, humanist and unapologetic defender of African culture, who brought a unique finesse to the art of writing, especially in poetry, lacing his lines with music and suiting the rhythm and tempo of words to its operatic foundations.

In doing this, he created a new sort of poetry placed on the wings of performance yet retaining the candour and piquancy of this elevated of all arts. His was a concatenation of poesy in union with performance as he also created words with the enigma of art that enthrals and thrills.

The author of ‘The Heresiad,’ that won him the NLNG Prize and many other works spread across anthologies and other publication outlets, Oke, was a visible signpost of an emergent trope of writing though traditional yet uniquely different and effusive in its acceleration and positioning a new credo of creativity.