The Arts-Muse Fair

FRINGES the steps to play lie is- not to smile; chew all the tickles below your jaws even when it pinches you to laugh at the fools you’re fooling kick your legs on the ground dazzle your eyes in rolls hold your tummy on a long cough- the same way mince-pies collude call sweats to your face in many drizzles place your handkerchiefs on a hay day and allow those around to greet sorry in many miles- sleeves and pity allow them recount their tales of pneumonia and survival garner truckloads of sympathy with wails and blames after all the world is for those whose tongue- appear in folds a hand apart for the tip a waist line for the blade... in abraded manifestoes and in denial.


TINGES some solicitude saturates- from the marrow to the vein others turn scalps, scars...

OPEN ARTS in collaboration with GANDUN KALMOMI are announcing the 2020 AMINIYA-TRUST HAUSA SHORT STORY WRITING COMPETITION.
THEME: The theme for this year, is CHALLENGES OF DEMOCRACY AND POLITICKING IN NIGERIA.
WORD COUNT: All entries should be a piece of creative writing in Hausa that fall between the word count of 1000 – 1500 words and conform to Hausa traditions and cultural norms.
SUBMISSION All entries should be sent to wasikunaminiya@dailytrust.com as a Microsoft Word attachment including full name, a short bio, home or office address and phone number.
DEADLINE Submissions will be open from May 15 2020 and close at 11:59pm West African Time (WAT) on July 15 2020. Entries sent outside the submission window will not be accepted.
PRIZES The top 3 Entries will be awarded prizes as follows: 1st Position: N250,000 2nd Position: N150,000 3rd Position: N100,000
Winners of the 2020 Aminiya-Trust Hausa Short Story Competition will be announced in September 2020.
Between September and October 2020, the…

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-appealing words; "red," "glazed with," and "white"…

BY PAUL LIAM
This analysis is primarily concerned with the utilization of the epistolary element as an instrument of postcolonial discourse by Sarah Ladipo Manyika in In Depence, and is based on the special edition of the novel published by Cassava Republic Press in 2016. This writer asserts that the novel in itself is not an Epistolary, but it deploys the epistolary technique in x-raying postcolonial themes with a special reflection on the realities that confronts post independent nations, located within the era of military rule in Nigeria. Besides the epistolary technique, the novel uses the third person point of view narrative technique in telling a story that is both didactic yet refreshingly creative. There are twelve epistolary exchanges in the novel, most them being the exchanges between Tayo and Vanessa, the central characters around whom the plot revolves.
Manyika was raised in Nigeria, has lived in Kenya, France and England. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California…

THE END IS GONE
If you hunger and thirst You are still alive! Those who kissed the lips of death are raptured! They are the smoke we saw leaving for oblivion. They are in a fortress! They are the ones With soft skins Wet lips And new lives
If you feed and sleep If you love and want to be loved then, you are a soul wondering in purgatory!
If your country have gods of nepotism and treachery then, you are a wall waiting to be broken!
The end is gone!
Every preacher in this face is a god! They have sweet lips And bitter tongue. and these gods are busy seeking for slaves and servants.
Give me a coin you'll be two times richer than Dangote. Or give me two coins and you'll be ten times richer than king Solomon.
This are the words Of a preacher.
The end is gone!
Those who gathered riches gathered enough! Like the generals in North and West Until they became too poor to buy a ticket to heaven if there is heaven <

Writers approach the writing process differently. What works for Writer A might not work for Writer B, therefore, it is important for the aspiring writer to understand that what defines a writer is style, what is often referred to as the writer’s voice. However, style in writing is influenced by certain factors such as genre or subgenre preferences and the kind of books a writer reads. Those who love crime fiction are certainly going to be better at writing crime fiction, those who read poetry are already setting themselves up to becoming poets and those who love to read essays about criticism are already defining their paths of becoming critics and book reviewers albeit subconsciously. What the beginning writer needs to do primarily is to know which of the genre he or she wants to be known for, this identification creates a sense of focus and direction in the writer who then sets about learning the rudiments of the selected genre. Of course, after attaining some level of proficiency …

Your head was really heavy when you opened your eyes, everything was abnormal, upside down. You couldn't help but wonder if you were in the devil's land or in the human world. You decided to lay still for few moment," it will help me regain my sanity." You thought. It took a little while before your sanity was regained.
"Oh no!" You shouted like you just saw yourself drowning but you just remembered that your grandmother fell off the cliff and drowned in the water beneath when you screamed out of the joy of seeing Asabe, your best friend whom you thought wouldn't make it to the hangout with your grandma. That scream startled your grandma who moved too fast forgetting that she was standing really close to the edge of the cliff. It happened so fast.
"Where is Asabe?" You wondered. You were trying to stand when you heard footsteps from behind. You looked back and saw Asabe, your parents and some men, the men went down the cliff to search for your g…