The Arts-Muse Fair

REVIEW BY  ISMAIL BALA Guitarist on the Landing By Uchechukwu Peter Umezirike she strums her Cellotaped guitar, slight woman who sings on the landing at afterwork hours; her jacket bleached, sneakers frayed, hair jumbled, face rucked, eyes a hint of distance, & voice like sand but –   you rarely pause to hear her sing, always in a dash against the push of bodies, until forced this evening to idle on the landing a moment; …train momentarily delayed the loudspeaker voice chafes your ears, sighs of commuters like gnats, odours treacly you nearly spit; should you Facebook or Instagram? her song is what grips – energy of the wind on which a hawk glides, your body unclenches to its currents, prodigious in their sweep; outspread as the hawk, you climb past the arc of sight,   above what she sings about: a father whose mind is a raft on the sea mother who sees shrapnel in her sleep      daughter who seeks love in syringed arms son wh

BY  ISMAIL BALA Decomposed Rhapsody  by Ola Ifatimehin I have another favourite song I'll love to share with you. You and I lost Our rhythm In the cacophony of sounds That is neither music nor silence. I have a favourite song That makes No sense Because you're not here To share. A song that reminds me Of your soothing smile, Sinful beauty, Forbidden charm. I have a favourite song that scares me of you. Oh yes! Oh no!! I have a favourite song I'd love to share with you For it has moved from my heart to my lips. A symphony of pains and loneliness. Of muted desires. It was the preeminent English critic , William Empson who introduced “Ambiguity” into the critical currency with the publication of Seven Types of Ambiguity in 1930. As confusing as Empson’s delineation of ambiguity is — he confuses ambiguity with all types of multiple meaning in poetry — he has invariably transformed critical a

Pic: Aminu S Muhammad The Red Wheelbarrow So much depends upon A red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. The Red Wheelbarrow is a beautiful and simple poem which, at a superficial level, depicts "a red wheel barrow/glazed with rain water" beside some white chickens. And yet the simplicity of the poem is misleading. As the first line says, there is "so much" in it. Structurally, the poem is divided into four stanzas with two lines each. There is a consistent alternation of three words and then one word in every stanza. In terms of meter, there is no consistency; music is however achieved through the soft vowel sounds in many of the words. The words in every stanza are arranged and line break employed in such a way to give emphasis on some certain words. The words "wheelbarrow," "rainwater," and "chickens" receive stronger emphasis by being modified with visually-ap

Pic: Aminu S Muhammad The essentiality of any literary piece is in its accessibility to readers, for the writer anticipates that there are readers for his work. However, poetry is often considered to be one genre of literature enjoyed by a cerebral few, who often than not are armed with the mechanical requisite for its appreciation. This supposition is drawn upon the assertion that poetry is esoteric in nature and as such can only be enjoyed by a limited group of readers who are sometimes fellow poets. Although, there are others who believe that since poetry reflects and represents emotion and reality of human societies, it is only rational that those who constitute the influences of such representation should be able to partake in the appreciation of the poeticization of their lives rendered in poems. It is lieu of this assertion that Niyi Osundare in his meta-poem “Poetry Is” avers that a poem should be accessible to the layman on the street, the laborer, market woman and farme

Book Title: Rhymes From Africa Author: Ibraheem Dooba Publisher: AMAB Books, Minna Pages: 39 Year: 2017 Reviewer: Paul Liam T he role of literature in the entrenchment of colonial ideals in the minds of Africans remains a subject of critical discourse among intellectuals and scholars in understudying the impact of colonialism on the psyche of colonised people of the world. It has been established that European colonializers used their literatures in perpetuating cultural imperialism that unfortunately continues till today. Africans, nay Nigerians are more inclined to the foreign than the local, a precarious adventure which has led the scholar-critic Professor Sule Emmanuel Egya (E. E Sule) to tag the emergent generation of Nigerian writers as the "exogenous generation." Through encounters with western literatures, Africans gained insights into the cultural, religious and value systems of the whites. European epistemology subsequently became the prime

This is a book you read and savour the richness of the poet’s skilful integration of poetics over and over, poured onto the white pages. The poems are segmented into three sections; The "Images of Memory", "Crossing", and "A Fictional of Farewell". Part One offers normal life occurrences as such while reading one feels the spirited feel of the poems. In Part Two, one is brought into a state of introspection considering the compartments of life's twists and turns. Lastly, Part Three shows the poets personal self realization. So, "A Fictional of Farewell" takes off the veil of convenience for the subject, treading through routes that shapes his/her values and resilience. Discoveries are made and identify affirmed. Love conquering all.  Part One, "Images of Memory", takes one into the everyday happenings of life. The first poem in this section, "Flight", simply conjures the scenario of a traveler in the plane, yet