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Poetry has developed in leaps and bounds right from its earliest, oral phase to the modern, written form and has been effectively utilised to serve different levels of needs in many societies and cultures for many centuries. However, what constitute the predominant leitmotifs or thematic thrusts of poetry vary from one society to another. While very many climes emphasise and project its formal/aesthetic qualities, content and value, African creative artists predominantly deploy poetry to serve multiple, community-oriented, utilitarian functions. This is the thrust of this paper which examines Niyi Osundare's Snapsongs: Homegroans and Foreignflares as a quintessence of African poetic art deployed chiefly to examine society with a view to attacking its imperfections and projecting or promoting its values. The research is a qualitative one, and adopts the interpretive design. The paper finds that Osundare's Snapsongs: Homegroans and Foreignflares chiefly derives its afflatus from the quotidian socio-economic and political realities of the African environment and reflects the complexity of the African experience. Through a lavish appropriation of copious oral artistic categories such as proverbs, aphorisms, metaphors, satires, and panegyrics, Osundare intensifies the didactic, communal, functional and other utilitarian values of the African poetic art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No abstract available.

In this article, we argue that KPD Maphalla’s poems were very influential in portraying protest to different forms of social oppression and exclusion in South Africa and Africa at large. Therefore, as a writer who was subjected to racial segregation during the apartheid regime, he positioned himself as a social poet concerned about the sociopolitical situation of Africans in Africa. The article illustrates how Maphalla’s use of tone and attitude towards racial discrimination has shown his ability to choose style in articulating a clear sociopolitical protest. This strategy has helped to make his readers aware of the social anomalies of his time, while condemning moral degeneration of that era. Therefore, this article provides an analysis of two poems from his book entitled Kgapha tsa ka: Mahlo a ka tutuboloha (My eyes open) and Ke ikopela tokoholo (I am asking for freedom), to understand the influence of the selected poems that are constructed in the form of protest. A historical-biographical criticism framework was employed in this case study to unravel the sociopolitical influence of his work towards the fight for freedom in South Africa. It is a qualitative explorative study, which uses purposive sampling to show how he portrays the theme of protest in his poems. Content analysis was used to analyse data guided by interpretivist paradigm. Contribution: This article fills a knowledge gap in Sesotho analysis. The article further contributes by highlighting Maphalla’s stance toward overcoming prejudice against black people. The article confirms that Maphalla, through his poetry, has played an important role in acting as a spokesperson for black people, and their freedom in South Africa.

Research related to creative expression has examined the form and nature of satire in both oral and print poetry in West Africa but is yet to adequately consider digital poetry. This essay examines Nana Awere Damoah’s My Book of #GHCoats, arguably the fi rst example of African conceptual poetry. A collation of humorous fi ctional quotes by Ghanaian Facebook users, #GHCoats allows for analysis the context of socio-political satire. In exploring the presence and utility of satire in #GHCoats, this essay analyzes the features of conceptual poetry as used via social media to present digital poetry as a developing force of creative expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Native Life in the Third Millennium, Masande Ntshanga’s third book after The Reactive (2014) and Triangulum (2019), a poet, philosopher and programmer wrestle with systemic oppression and themselves, navigating anomie, alienation and flashes of abundance in millennial Africa. This excerpt, shared with the permission of Model See Media, is the opening long-form poem that gives the book its title.

Deviation in the literary parlance occurs when a speaker or writer deviates from the normal rules and standards of a language. By breaking the rule of language, poets create art from the language that a language group is familiar with. Previous studies on written Igbo poetry (WIP) focused mainly on the content of WIP, with little attention paid to the language of the modern Igbo poets (MIP). Consequently, there is a dearth of research on how deviation occurs in African literatures. Therefore, through the lenses of Shklovsky’s defamiliarisation theory, this study examines WIP, with a view to describing the techniques used by MIP in achieving deviation, for the purpose of defamiliarising language in their works. Data consists of twenty poems randomly selected from eleven Igbo poetic texts, written between 1975, when WIP debuted to 2015, a period that marks the fourth decade of its existence. The poems studied were subjected to a qualitative analysis that focuses on the use of language to achieve deviation. Findings show that four types of deviation feature in WIP scene: syntactic, lexical, phonological and graphological. Syntactic deviation is achieved through the use of end-weight, focusing and topicalisation. Lexical deviation is the achieved through the use of coinages, lexical borrowing and dialectal deviation. Only apocope phonological deviation feature in WIP, while graphological deviation is done to ease pronunciation with a view to achieving rhythmic effect.

Deviation in the literary parlance occurs when a speaker or writer deviates from the normal rules and standards of a language. By breaking the rule of language, poets create art from the language that a language group is familiar with. Previous studies on written Igbo poetry (WIP) focused mainly on its content, with little attention paid to the language of the modern Igbo poets (MIP). Consequently, there is a dearth of research on how deviation occurs in African literatures. Therefore, through the lenses of Shklovsky's defamiliarization theory, this study examines WIP, with a view to describing the techniques used by MIP in achieving deviation, for the purpose of defamiliarizing language in their works. Data consists of seventeen poems randomly selected from eight Igbo poetic texts, written between 1975, when WIP debuted, to 2015, a period that marks the fourth decade of its existence. The poems studied were subjected to a qualitative analysis that focuses on the use of language to achieve deviation. Findings showed that four types of deviation feature in WIP scene: Syntactic, lexical, phonological, and graphological. Syntactic deviation is achieved through the use of end-weight, focusing, and topicalization. Lexical deviation is the achieved through the use of coinages, lexical borrowing and dialectal deviation. Only apocope phonological deviation feature in WIP, while graphological deviation was applied to ease pronunciation with a view to achieve rhythmic effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we argue that KPD Maphalla's poems were very influential in portraying protest to different forms of social oppression and exclusion in South Africa and Africa at large. Therefore, as a writer who was subjected to racial segregation during the apartheid regime, he positioned himself as a social poet concerned about the sociopolitical situation of Africans in Africa. The article illustrates how Maphalla's use of tone and attitude towards racial discrimination has shown his ability to choose style in articulating a clear sociopolitical protest. This strategy has helped to make his readers aware of the social anomalies of his time, while condemning moral degeneration of that era. Therefore, this article provides an analysis of two poems from his book entitled Kgapha tsa ka: Mahlo a ka tutuboloha (My eyes open) and Ke ikopela tokoholo (I am asking for freedom), to understand the influence of the selected poems that are constructed in the form of protest. A historical-biographical criticism framework was employed in this case study to unravel the sociopolitical influence of his work towards the fight for freedom in South Africa. It is a qualitative explorative study, which uses purposive sampling to show how he portrays the theme of protest in his poems. Content analysis was used to analyse data guided by interpretivist paradigm. Contribution: This article fills a knowledge gap in Sesotho analysis. The article further contributes by highlighting Maphalla's stance toward overcoming prejudice against black people. The article confirms that Maphalla, through his poetry, has played an important role in acting as a spokesperson for black people, and their freedom in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to analyse selected poems from the anthology, Collection of Poems by Kenneth Maswabi (2020), that deal with social stratification as a source of xenophobia. Postcolonial theory is selected and adopted for the purpose of analysis of the texts under study. The purpose of applying postcolonial theory is to appropriately contextualize the text while analyzing it from a postcolonial standpoint. To address the impact of xenophobia and its link to social stratification, three poems were chosen, studied, and analysed. The study took into account South Africa's historical context and linked it to contemporary developments in the country. David Mário Matsinhe's concept of citizenship is adopted from postcolonial theory. Matsinhe's concept of citizenship has been chosen because he contends that the struggle for citizenship and survival in South Africa, as well as anti-immigrant sentiments, has revitalized group interactions in postcolonial Africa, often with fatal repercussions. Hence, the historical antecedents have sparked xenophobic assaults in South Africa since they refer to the country's colonial past. This demonstrates that during colonialism's repression, people learned to build resistance to any type of foreign incursion, particularly from African immigrants. As a result of these attitudes, a schism developed between citizens and immigrants. Based on the findings of the study, xenophobia caused social stratification, as proven by the analysis of the chosen poems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a comparative study of the critiques of developments in Shona and Swahili poetry that began in 1970s Tanzania and 1980s Zimbabwe, after the introduction of regular patterns in Shona poetry (late 1950s) and of free verse in Swahili literature (late 1960s). These verse forms became the object of heated debate about the nature of ‘tradition’ and of ‘colonial’ innovation among scholars, intellectuals and poets. These debates went beyond notions of stylistic canons; rather, they focused on identity, as closely connected with tradition and the need for decolonization. The problem recognized in this paper is that this criticism became prescriptive, implying the risk of limiting verbal-artistic expression in terms of style and content. This article shows a continuity between these different contexts in relation to critical opposition to stylistic innovation and freedom of (expressing) thought. By comparing the poetry and philosophy of the Tanzanian poet Euphrase Kezilahabi and Zimbabwean poet Chirikure Chirukure, this paper problematizes the terms of these debates and proposes an inductive and aesthetic approach to texts that avoids prescriptivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Okot pBitek’s Song of Lawino and Ocol manifests a conflict caused by Cos-mos and Ontological differences between African and western culture. The main character, Lawino in the Song of Lawino, laments of the cultural death of her western educated husband Ocol. Examining the book through the lens of African Philosophy, it is shown that Lawino has no sufficient knowledge about western cosmos and its ontology. Thus her argument is centered upon the protest and defense of Okoli’s tradition and customs. Two perspectives seem to conflict within Song of Lawino and Ocol. First is the way Ocol views African tradition and customs and second is the way Lawino regards her reli-gion and the foreign religion into which her husband has been converted. Ocol in Song of Ocol, seems to attack the center of African ontology. He sees that Lawino’s beliefs in African tradition and customs is superstation. In the side of argument, Ocol appears to be stronger because he knows the weakness of his society. Being the advocate and prophesying western civilization, he under-stands what he advocates through the knowledge he acquires from reading. (Song of Ocol), Ocol shifts from attacking Ocol’s culture and his attack is ex-tended to African culture in its totality. He attacks the Gikuyu,, the Ankole women of Rwanda and Burundi, the Swahili women with their buibui attires, the Luo, the Karamajong the Kalenjin and the Maasai warriors. The fact that Ocol shifts his attack to cover the large area of African tradition and customs shows that the two characters are used symbolically to represent traditional Africans (Lawino) and educated Africans who who are represented by the character Ocol. However, despite the fact that Ocol is educated, he retains his roots just as Ocol tribe retains his name.

In the present essay, I examine the work and career of the Mozambican poet Noémia Carolina Abranches de Sousa Soares (1926-2002). It is well known that Sousa began her career publishing under the initials "NS" to confuse her identity with that of her brother (whose name was Nuno) and so obfuscate her gender; however, women are a constant element in her work. Beyond this, I argue that Sousa adopted a pioneering approach to gender, one deeply connected to the anti-colonial struggle, the fight for the rights of her people, and the African American imaginary. Indelibly linked to social, racial, and gendered subalternity, Mozambican women constitute in Sousa's oeuvre the personification of the struggle against the societal paradigms of the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anglophone African poetry has become a significant medium through which African society from the year 2000 to date is mirrored. The younger Anglophone African poets, widely referred to as the poets of the third-generation, have always used their poetry as means to respond to both historical and current sociopolitical circumstances that tend to distinguish Africa from the rest of the world. Their poetry now constitutes counter-hegemonic discourse against bad leadership in Africa and against corrupt African social and medical institutions. Using Hyginus Ekwuazi's The Monkey's Eyes as a representative poetry of the younger Anglophone African poets, emphasis is made on how the poet depicts the African society and its hospitals. The paper analyzes the collection as a sequel to all other collections of poetry produced by the younger poets at this period. It reveals the condition in which the poetry is produced and how it has responded to the decay in African society and its hospitals. The paper points out that though the older generation of the Anglophone African poets responded to similar socio-political situation, the younger generation of the Anglophone African poets has become the prominent voice in this period and that their poetry provides a clear picture of what is happening in Africa within this time space. Being a new set of voices on the terrain of the Anglophone African poetry, a study of this poetry opens up a new platform upon which this so-called "aesthetic of rage" is appreciated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of traditional oral poetic forms on modern African poetry has been significant. Fascinated by oral forms which their respective communities relied on (to inform, teach, and correct erring members) before the advent of literacy, modern African writers borrow from these oral traditions and blend them with the features of the written Western literary forms. This appropriation of the oral poetic techniques by modern African poets continues today, as is clearly evident in the writings of many contemporary African poets, whose scripted works are seen to have drawn much in terms of content and form from the African oral poetic tradition. Following in this trend, the new African diaspora poets have also maintained the practice of skillfully blending the rich African verbal art and the modern (written) poetic forms to articulate the experiences of their African homeland as well as those of the diaspora, in order to construct and project their identities and visions of a new life in their lived world. In order to explore how through recourse to memory, "new African diasporas" (African-descended people who migrated out of Africa, during the postcolonial era and who live and practice their art outside the African homeland) utilize African oral art techniques in their writings, this essay analyses the poetry of Tanure Ojaide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the employment of fear eliciting images characteristic of environmental apocalypse as a means of influencing the attitude of audiences in regard to manifestations of climate change in selected poems from East Africa. The analysis draws on Stephen O'Leary and Greg Garrard's understanding of comedy and tragedy as modes of thought applicable to apocalyptic stories. Following this thought, I analyse renditions of scenes of destruction in the poems to understand how harnessing emotions of fear and pity may be valuable in environmental discourse. I argue that far from enhancing the notion of an inescapable calamity towards which humans are fast careering, the emotions of fear and pity in the poems potentially enhance meaningful engagement with the ecological crisis, and promote culpability among audiences. I assert that reading apocalyptic representations as attempts to achieve rhetorical effects might be more beneficial in the context of environmental literary criticism than consideration of the truth value of apocalyptic projections. The article points out some of the ways in which the song mode of poetry may be supportive to this way of reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that utilising the techniques of oral resources by African poets does not necessarily reflect political undertone but an acknowledgement of the aesthetic functions of the oral forms. Using a combination of literary and lexicon-rhetorical devices for analysis, the paper examines the deployment of oral modes in African poetry through a reading of Ezenwa-Ohaeto's poetry collection, The Chants of a Minstrel and how it contributes to the overall aesthetic purpose of the poet. The paper concludes with a bold affirmation that the poets' adaptation of oral styles and techniques surpasses that of writing against the "Other." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article treats selected oral poems whose topoi or motifs have transcended time and space to play out themselves in modern African fictions where colonial languages and their consequent habits of thought serve as media of enunciation. Thereafter, it beams attention on African scholars and writers who have attempted, presumably, to translate the oral medium of expression into indigenous and/or colonial written form(s) while maintaining the navel-strings that linked them, through the transfer of topoi and from the local and indigenous language to the Europhone form which, though, has led to international recognition, also serves to affirm a classic consequential illustration of the zero sum game

The upsurge of discourses in Gender and Feminist studies and theories has garnered new levels of consciousness about the place of the woman in contemporary society. The contemporary African society has been greatly impacted by such discourses and this has led to new writings (poetry, fiction and non-fiction) that confront hitherto unchallenged definitions and positioning of women. Negative representation of the female gender still continues to surface in contemporary African literary texts by males. This essay explores one of such texts by a Cameroonian poet. It discusses various forms of female erasure by showing how binary structures in Ezra Lim's "Womanhood" function to reveal profound ideas of female marginality. Although the poem like many others in Lim's collection titled Woman (A Collection of Poems) has a deeply religious tone and mindset, it also conveys strong undercurrents of anti-female sentiments by continually placing the female in a peripheral position. Lim conveys a certain reality (typical Cameroonian cultural experience) from a particular viewpoint that shows women to exist purposely for the good of the men. Lim's religious inclinations play a major role in his definition of the position of the woman in the binary equation.

The paper examines the various voices in African poetry. African poets use their themes as echoes to salvage various inherences found in the decaying political, economic and social landscape. The paper argues textually the cultural ethos and the contemporary post-independence disillusionment on the African psyche as a result of colonilization. Using the meta-critical approach combined with realism, within sociological approach, the research calls for a concerted effort to stimulate originality and harness the benefits of globalization for the development of humanity in Africa.

The concept of mutual illumination between texts, genres, arts, and disciplines has been used in scholarly work for decades (Weisstein, 1973, 1993). Nevertheless, much of this literature lacks a firm anchor with regard to a literal source of the analogy "mutual illumination." We argue that by observing natural phenomena that actually mutually illuminate, influence and otherwise affect each other, greater insight into how texts interact in similar ways can be achieved. Thus, drawing concepts from astrophysics, with specific reference to multiple star systems, a conceptual framework is derived in which analogous relations are proposed and interrogated. This framework couches the discussion in a stylistic analysis of our primary text, Jími Ṣólańkẹ́'s Ọ̀nà Là , which is analyzed both on its own and also with reference to other texts which are interconnected, interrelated, and serve to "mutually illuminate" each other. We find that when considered in light of other related texts, the analysis of Ọ̀nà Là becomes much richer and, in the process, the understanding of the other texts is also enriched. Stylistic tools used in the analysis include various types of intertextual and intratextual parallelism, repetition, and silence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While some notable studies have been done on Tanure Ojaide and his coevals on their "Alter/Native" tradition of modern African poetry that gained inspiration from indigenous African oral literature and folklore, there has been no focused study on the place of folklore in his writing, especially his poetry. Ojaide's writing is deeply steeped in Urhobo folklore, which his upbringing and later study and research in Udje have brought about. Though this is not an essentialist reading of his work, I intend to use his specific cultural background to do a reading of his poetry in order to show the depth, breadth, and complexity of his themes and the sophistication of his art, all of which are infused with his native Urhobo folklore. From legendary personages such as Ogiso, Arhuaran, Aminogbe, Ayayughe, Ogidigbo through the fauna and flora of the iroko, akpobrisi, uwara, eyareya, to the incorporation of folk songs and modelling of poems on the udje genre, Ojaide uses orature to establish a cultural identity and a common humanity for his work. Through local folklore and a style borrowed from the oral tradition he deploys folkloric resources as style and form to advance his themes. My study thus illuminates the deep meaning of the writer's thoughts and the effective use of oral poetic performance style. This conscious effort of the writer appears to have yielded poetic dividends in the relevance of his work and the literary reputation he has gained through his consistency despite innovations now and then. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In his article "Modern African Verse and the Politics of Authentication" Gabriel S. Bamgbose argues that the authenticity of modern African poetry is marked by the intricate tie between African verse and African life in its diversities and complexities. Bamgbose examines the "modern" nature of African poetry, its oral roots, its treatment of colonial, and cultural nationalist issues, its issues of négritude, language, radical consciousness, gender, and its "international" nature. Bamgbose draws on the poetry of Okot p'Bitek, Taban Lo Liyong, and Frank Chipasula of East Africa, Tchikaya U Tam'si, Tati Loutard, and Gahlia Gwangwa'a of Central Africa, and Dennis Brutus, Agostinho Neto, and Luvuyo Mkangelwa of Southern Africa (he excludes poetry from West Africa, which has often taken the front space in critical discourse on modern African poetry). In doing so, he reveals that modern African poetry possesses a complex nature, a direct representation of the spirit, identities, and realities of Black Africa and Africans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the transcript of an opening address by South African author Douglas Livingstone at the conference of the English Society of the Indian Teachers' Association on September 6, 1975. Topics covered include his comments on the achievements of African poets Oswald Mtshali, Mongane Serote and Siphoe Sepamla. Also mentioned are the unseen aspects and challenges faced by African poets.

Religious poetry is generally considered the fruit of a people's long reflection on their relationship with their gods, with the ancestors, and with the partly seen and unseen universe. It is used to celebrate events in the life of the individual and the community, to express fellowship, and as a powerful means of communication. Thus, religious poetry is an integral element of a people's heritage. In this paper, I intend to present some forms of religious poetry, which are found among the Bakossi people of Cameroon, in order to show how magically-oriented formulaic expressions are used in order to maintain adherence to the normative order of society. The point I intend to make is that the incantatory form of religious poetry, was, and still is, used among the Bakossi people of Cameroon, as well as in other parts of rural Africa in terms of individual and communal education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interpretation of Christopher Okigbo's poetry remains deeply controversial more than forty years after his death. The poet himself did not help matters by telling interviewers that he did not ever set out to communicate meanings, but to make music. This paper investigates Okigbo's conception of the music of poetry and opens a new approach to the poet's work. It argues, through a close reading of two difficult poems of the 1962-66 period, that Okigbo's poetics did not prevent him from engaging deeply with the realities of his experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconsiders the poetry of Okot p'Bitek in light of both his formal legal education and the principles of traditional Acholi law. Okot claims in Artist, the Ruler that traditional African poets actually create and proclaim law at a fundamental level in society. Okot himself, as a poet in the "traditional" mode, can thus be understood as performing a similar function, particularly in his poems Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol, which can be read in terms of the reconciliatory procedures of traditional justice and, jointly, as an expression of the contemporary value (and possible complications) of traditional law as a response to the legal norms inherited from the British colonial legal system. Given recent debates about the efficacy ot traditional justice in promoting reconciliation in Northern Uganda, a "legal" reading of Okot's poetry demonstrates the continuing relevance of his perspectives with regard to traditional art and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until the recent effacement of aspects of the Igbo traditional values through the combined and sustained conspiracy of Western colonialism and Christian evangelical missions, the masquerade was one of the most venerated symbols of the people's social cohesion. It was particularly revered for its juridical functions in many Igbo communities. Whereas it provided entertainment to the communities, it was also often evoked as the most important symbol of justice amongst the people. This paper offers a critical reading of Ezenwa-Ohaeto's The Voice of the Night Masquerade, a work of rare achievement that brings into focus not only aspects of the cultural idiosyncrasies of the Igbo of South Eastern Nigeria through the cultural genre of the night masquerade, but also does so with an elegance that resurrects the age-long question on the nature of the language of traditional African poetry which engaged scholars like Chinweizu and his team, Wole Soyinka, and many others during the long, and continuing quest for the decolonization of the African mind. It locates aspects of Igbo language and culture through the vision and mannerism of Ezenwa-Ohaeto. The Voice of the Night Masquerade, it concludes, is particularly relevant because its ethics and aesthetics provide profound insight as a postcolonial statement in social equipoise that debunks colonialist civilizational assumptions of Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New technologies are gradually and systematically transforming the process of information dissemination and retrieval. The implications are wide ranging, and the virtual cartographies and landscapes delineated by these new technologies are largely uncharted. The distribution and marketing of print culture has been historically uneven, and whereas inequities continue to exist and disproportionately impact francophone sub-saharan Africa, accessibility to information and participation in cultural, political, and social dialogue has been enhanced as a result of certain internet mechanisms. The interview that follows explores how the blog held by the critically acclaimed congolese novelist and poet Alain Mabanckou operates as a new forum for conversation, debate, and exchange between people located in different parts of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The association of Christopher Okigbo's poetry with Anglo-American modernist poetics has often attracted two main types of evaluation: the failure of ideology and Eurocentrism. But Okigbo demonstrates literary dexterity in the manner in which the deep structure of his poetry troubles the historical overvaluation of the white sign and the devaluation of the black sign manifest in the colonial market of memories between Europe and Africa. Historical dialogism or a postcolonial market of memories--involving the invocation of both the local and the foreign, the specific and the universal--is a strategic feature of Okigbo's poetry. He ultimately creates a third signifying field via a conjunction of two signifying systems, the native and the colonial, into a new state of consciousness rooted in a traditional African mythic code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of exile in contemporary African literature remains central to the understanding of its people. Of particular interest is the place of poets of the second generation in the depiction of this phenomenon. Although the paradigm of generational configuration is admittedly flexible, this paper seeks, nonetheless, to explore the perception of a few selected poets of the second generation from Anglophone Africa in order to illustrate the multidimensional approach to the engagement of the theme. By so doing, the paper is also concerned with the construction of home through its images, on the one hand, and on the other, the dissection that lies between home and exile in countries of destination in the West. The paper also hopes to explore the frustration that goes with the experience and the dilemmatic situation in which its victims are caught. It will show at the same time how from an initial standpoint of essentially internal sociopolitical and economic factors in regions and countries, things have gradually moved in the past three decades or thereabouts into an exponentially actuated and leveling stage in which globalization—as seen in its present fashion— has accelerated the spate of African citizens' vulnerability to exile, especially to the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the significant distinction between text and performance in African literature. The text is considered the permanent artifact hand written or printed, while the performance is regarded as the concretization of the text which brings life to the text. Praise poetry in most African region constitutes an obscure, opaque or allusive type. The obscure content in praise poetry could be deployed for political reasons. It emphasizes that even African oral praise poetry could be considered as a performance of text through entextualization.

Discusses the African poem 'Ken Saro-Wiwa the Star of Ogoni.' Individuals' super-ego functions; Structural pattern of the song; Doctrine of revolutionary violence.

Discusses the poetry of African writer Charles Mungoshi. Exploration of the meaning or significance of life; Ironic fascination with time; Nihilistic perspective in Mungoshi's poems; Positive celebration of the miracle of life; Fascination with the element of regeneration; Scarcity of copies of Mungoshi's collection 'The Milkman Doesn't Only Deliver Milk.'

Focuses on the popularity of poetry in Africa. Reasons behind the popularity of poetry in the region; Major African writers who contributed to the oral tradition of the country; Characteristics of African poetry.

Focuses on the incorporation of Afro-Cuban culture in the poems written during the Afrocubanista poetic movement. Accounts on the Cuban nationalism; Contents of the literary writing of Afro-Cuban writers; Differences between the form and literary genres of European origin; Utilization of real Afro-Cuban verbal forms.

Focuses on 'udje' dance songs of the Urhobo people of Africa as one of the most poetic of Africa's indigenous poetic forms. Ways in which udje dance songs constitute an art form whose satiric poetry is highly imagistic and poignant; Traits of the Urhobo people; Major groups and their opponents in udje contests; Popular themes of udje dance songs, such as madness and sexual misbehavior.

Comments on the Sunjata epic, a masterpiece of African oral literature. Origin of the epic; Recognition as the sole epic entirely transmitted through oral communication; Details on the epic; Versions.