Niyi Osundare At 60 Reads At Jazz Hole In Lagos

One of the foremost poets of our time, Professor Niyi Osundare celebrates his 60th birthday with a special reading on Saturday at the Jazzhole in Lagos, Nigeria.

Date: Saturday 10th March 2007
Time: 5.00pm
Venue: The Jazzhole,
168 Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.
   
Born in Ikere-Ekiti, Ondo State of Nigeria, Osundare is a prolific poet, dramatist and literary critic. He gained degrees at the University of Ibadan (BA), the University of Leeds (MA) and York University, Canada (PhD, 1979). Previously professor (from 1989) and Head of English (1993-1997) at the University of Ibadan, he became professor of English at the University of New Orleans in 1997. He has always been a vehement champion of the right to free speech and is a strong believer in the power of words, saying,"to utter is to alter". Osundare is renowned for his commitment to socially relevant art and artistic activism and has written several open letters to the President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, whom Osundare has often publicly criticised. Under the rule of the dictator General Abacha (1993-1998), Osundare regularly contributed poems to a Nigerian national newspaper (now part of the collection Songs of the Season) that criticised the regime and commented upon the lives of people in Nigeria. As a result he was frequently visited by Security Agents and asked to explain his poems and to whom they referred."By that time I realized that the Nigerian security apparatus had become quite 'sophisticated', quite 'literate' indeed! "A couple of my students at the University of Ibadan had become informers; a few even came to my classes wired. And when I was reading abroad, someone trailed me from city to city. At home, my letters were frequently intercepted." Osundare believes that there is no choice for the African poet but to be political: "You cannot keep quiet about the situation in the kind of countries we find ourselves in, in Africa. When you wake up and there is no running water, when you have a massive power outage for days and nights, no food on the table, no hospital for the sick, no peace of mind; when the image of the ruler you see everywhere is that of a dictator with a gun in his hand; and, on the international level, when you live in a world in which your continent is consigned to the margin, a world in which the colour of your skin is a constant disadvantage, everywhere you go - then there is no other way than to write about this, in an attempt to change the situation for the better." Under the rule of the dictator General Abacha (1993-1998), Osundare regularly contributed poems to a Nigerian national newspaper (now part of the collection Songs of the Season) that criticised the regime and commented upon the lives of people in Nigeria.  In 1997, he accepted a teaching and research post at the University of New Orleans and is a holder of numerous awards for his poetry, as well as the Fonlon/Nichols award for "excellence in literary creativity combined with significant contributions to Human Rights in Africa".

His 60th Birthday Literary Fete will start with a reading session at The Jazzhole, 168, Awolowo Road, Ikoyi and then move on to venues at Ikere Ekiti and the University of Ibadan.The website of the Programme is http://www.osundare60fete.blogspot.com

Not_My_Business_by_Niyi_Osundare is compulsory study in the AQA A syllabus for GCSE English Literature.

Publications include:

Songs from the Marketplace (1983).
Village Voices (1984).
The Eye of the Earth (1986) winner of a Commonwealth Poetry Prize; winner of the poetry prize of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA).
Moonsongs (1988).
Songs of the Season (1990).
Waiting Laughters (1990) winner of the Noma Award.
Selected Poems (1992).
Midlife (1993).
Thread in the Loom: Essays on African Literature and Culture (2002).
The Word is an Egg (2002).
The State Visit (2002) (play)
Pages from the Book of the Sun: New and Selected Poems (2002).

Links:"I am a Humanist": An Interview with Niyi Osundare
http://www.africaresource.com/war/vol4.1/ ogoanah-osundare.html

Niyi Osundare survives Hurricane Katrina
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/ 2005-10/2005-10-07-voa67.cfm
"Obasanjo has ruined this country, " An open letter to Nigeria's President Obasanjo - 2004 http://www.usafricaonline.com/ niyiosundare.objruinsngr.html

Another Letter to Obasanjo from Niyi Osundare - 2006http://www.saharareporters.com/ dn001.php?dnid=70

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niyi_Osundare"

Ndipe,
After, Wole Soyinka's poetry, I love Niyi Osundare's animated verses.
He writes them to be performed.

Folks, this is an old topic for goodness sake. Why cant you start a new topic?