Visionary Poet Ojaide Set For Abuja
The May 29 edition of the regular Guest Writer Session hosted by the Abuja Writers' Forum (AWF) features one of Nigeria's important literary voices, Tanure Ojaide, noted not just for his prolific output as a poet but also for his commitment through literature to the Niger Delta struggle.

Currently a Frank Porter Graham Distinguished Professor of Africana Studies at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Tanure Ojaide was born in 1948 in the oil-rich but economically impoverished Niger Delta area of Nigeria . He was raised by his grandmother in a rural environment. He attended a Catholic Grammar School and Federal Government College, Warri.

He went to the University of Ibadan (UI) where he studied English, French, and German and, in those days, published in student magazines such as The Beacon and the Pelican.

He also wrote most of the poems in his first collection, Children of Iroko, while at U.I. He turned down a scholarship to do M.Ed., but did an M.A. in Creative Writing in Syracuse University in the United States where he also got his Ph.D. in English. "It was a great exposure and big boost to my writing career," the Delta born scholar said.

Ojaide taught for many years at The University of Maiduguri before he left to teach African/Pan-African literatures and arts at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte . He received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship for 1999/2000 academic year to collect and study the "Udje Dance Songs of Nigeria 's Urhobo People." With a Fulbright fellowship, he taught at the University of Maiduguri and Delta State University , Abraka, in the 2002/2003 academic year. He has read from his poetry in Britain , Canada , France , Ghana , Israel , Malaysia , Mexico , Nigeria , Spain , The Netherlands, the United States , and South Africa .

In July 2005, an international conference was held at Delta State University , Abraka , Nigeria with participants from the USA , Canada , South Africa , Botswana , Cameroon , and Nigeria to discuss Ojaide's writings. The Second International Ojaide Conference was held in July 2008 also at Delta State University , Abraka. He represented Nigeria in Poetry Africa 2005 at The University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban , South Africa (October 10-16, 2005). Tanure Ojaide was the 2005 recipient of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte 's First Citizens Bank Scholar Award for his creative writing and scholarship.

His poetry is a blend of oral traditions particularly the Udje poetic form from his Urhobo background and modern techniques, ensuring a unique stylistic end product. Most of his poems show an intense criticism of imperialism, religion and other issues and they have been translated into Chinese, Dutch, French, and Spanish.

Ojaide has fifteen poetry collections, the more recent of which include: Waiting for the Hatching of a Cockerel (2008); The Tale of the Harmattan (2007) In the House of Words (2005); I Want to Dance and Other Poems (2003); In the Kingdom of Songs (2002); Invoking the Warrior Spirit: New and Selected Poems (2000).

This prolific poet and writer had won several literary prizes, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Africa Region in 1987; the Association of Nigerian Authors' (ANA) Prize for Poetry; BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Prize, and the All-Africa Okigbo Prize for Poetry. Ojaide's poetry has been preoccupied with the Niger Delta struggle and he has recently written a novel, The Activist.

Dr Ojaide will take a creative writing workshop (11 am - 2 pm) at the International Institute of Journalism (IIJ), Hamdala Plaza, Jimmy Carter Street, Off Protea Hotel, Asokoro. Interested writers are free to attend the workshop. Later, Dr Ojaide would do a reading and book signing (4 pm) at Pen and Pages Bookstore, Adetokunbo Ademola Street, Near Mikano Generators, Wuse 2, Abuja .

When Lola Shoneyin Took Magical Flights
On April 24, writers in the nation's capital city, Abuja, hosted Lola Shoneyin, one of Nigeria's most significant female literary voices, who just returned from the launch and promotional tour of Britain for her new novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives. In this report, TUNJI AJIBADE, a consultant writer, catalogues happenings at an event that was the focus of all literary attention in the week it took place. She took two flights in two days in the end. And both were magical in a way, like birds' flights she admired so much.

One arrived from London less than forty-eight hours before an event where she was the guest, a surprise going by the fact that dust from volcanic eruption across Europe had led to flight cancellations. The other took off and landed at the April edition of Guest Writer Session organized by Abuja Writers Forum (AWF) where she had to fly, mostly back in time, for writers and other literary enthusiasts who had thronged the Pen and Pages Bookstore venue. "It's true, I almost didn't make it," Lola Shoneyin, the acclaimed poet, teacher and novelist said when the organizers gave a brief history of the twists and turns that had characterized the final days to the event. The author of 'The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives', was about to leave for London , where she promoted her latest novel, when she gave her words to come and mix with writers. But as the days drew closer, dust took over the skies of Europe , and flights were cancelled. There was concern that the event would hold without her. "I don't like the idea that writers will be here waiting for me, and I am not here," she told her audience. So she did everything she could to get on one of the earliest flights from London to Abuja . The audience had clapped at that. But they had more to clap for when, in the course of the interactive session, they managed to put the Guest Writer on another flight, in fact, series of short flight into the past, as she explained the realities that informed the writing of some of her poems.

The Master of Ceremony at the event was Mr Mike Ekunno, an aide to the Minister of Information and Communication. He invited the artist, Kevin Ubani, a graduate of Abia State University who operates a studio at the Art and Craft Village behind Sheraton Hotel, Abuja , to display his paintings in a mini art exhibition. Kevin's experiments were diverse, and they drew much positive comments. And there was something about his sense of humour even as he conveyed issues that are harsh and philosophical in nature in his works. "This work shows a fact of life, the fact that as some things go down, so other go up. Though there is economic meltdown, things such as corruption, for instance, go up," he said as he explained to the audience one of his paintings that combined abstract with reality in a manner that, from the audience comments, was unique. On that occasion, the laughter that accompanied the artist's tongue-in-cheek explanation, travelled across the hall.

Shoneyin, who was at the event with her husband, Ola Soyinka, took the 'hot seat' after a brief introduction in which the organizers noted that "her debut poetry 'So all the time I was sitting on an egg', drew attention not only for its long and seemingly strange title, but because it announced the arrival of an assured poetic voice handling, "diverse, everyday, seemingly insignificant matters" centred around women. The follow-up collection - Song of a Riverbird - is regarded as displaying "a tough, terse wit and assured confidence that both arrests and enchants readers." Interestingly, both of these observations would turn out to have significance as the event progressed. Shoneyin read poems from two of her collections, 'Song of a Riverbird' and 'For the Love of Flight'. It was what both books have in common - bird, flight - that first drew punches from some people in the audience. "What do you have for birds?" was one the many punches that landed as a question. "The idea of freedom represents many things to me, and I can't bear the thought of being caged. Freedom associated with birds, their flights, they fly up when they want, and down when they want, is magical for me," Shoneyin said.

"And do you write for women because you are a woman?" Ike Francis, a painter, writer and University lecturer from Port Harcourt , asked. "I don't write because I am a woman, I write because I am first and foremost a human being." But she didn't miss the opportunity to point out the relevance of women who are into writing, as she stated that not many women in the country do serious writing. "If women don't write, a significant voice, perspective, in the society is lost," she added. Yet women and issues that concern them are not the only things she writes about. "Many writers concentrate on politics as we know partisan politics, but they leave out the everyday life, effects of it in the life of an average citizen. I like the way you portray politics from the day to day effects of what happens on the grand stage on common people," Bibi Bakare Yusuf, publisher at Cassava Republic said. Shoneyin had nothing to remove from that, but opened to pages in her book 'For the love of flight' with poems that treated political issues.

Observations about her style of writing also drew comments. Attention was drawn to the simplicity of her style. And this, just like her personality, which is quintessential humility and simplicity, some writers in her audience stated they admired. "I relate with your poems because I write the way you do. People have actually heard me read my poems and one of the things they said is that they are 'like Lola Shoneyin's poems,'" Sandra Nwadi, a writer pointed out. But as it happened, some of the comments such as this sent Shoneyin boarding flights, memory flights, even as she used the opportunity to point out to poets in her audience that ornate poems are not necessarily superior to simple form of writing. She recalled, for instance, a much-decorated Nigerian writer based in England , Dotun Adebayo MBE - a graduate of Oxford - who placed her poems side by side with some acclaimed poets whose work he had read, but came out to declare, "I really like your poems, and they encourage me to write poems, the way I will like to write them." Adebayo had thought the works of these celebrated poets unnecessarily complicated and totally lost to a reader. "I don't see why a poem should be beyond its reader. I believe a poem should communicate freely," Shoneyin said of her style. And what she said was there in some of the poems she read at the event. She wrote about 'seemingly insignificant matters centred around women' in, for instance, 'For Kitan', and 'Jolademi'. The two poems, in the course of explaining circumstances that led to their conception like several others she read, made her take flights into the past. 'For Kitan', and 'Jolademi' are about the realities of losing a child, or losing an unborn child, and the pains that go with it. Recollecting an experience, Shoneyin said, "It was when I wrote 'Jolademi' that I began to get over the impacts of something that happened to me about nine years earlier." Writing about a pain, in that case, became part of a healing process.

Shoneyin would later express her delight at being present at the event. Among the people in the audience was Mrs Noeonyeodiri Ukoha, an author and management staff of NTA; Mrs Toyin Adewale-Gabriel, a poet and author, and Mr Steve Fimibama, a management staff at Nigerian Immigration Service. The event came to an end after the Guest Writer was presented with souvenir by the organizers.

The monthly Guest Writer Session is one of the activities of Abuja Writers' Forum during which published writers interact with writers and other members of the public. The Forum, in collaboration with Embassy of the United States of America , is organizing a special reading that will feature Nigeria 's Orange and Commonwealth Prize winner, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The special reading scheduled for May 15 will include a one-day writing workshop where Adichie will mentor budding writers. The next AWF monthly Guest Writer Session will take place on May 29 featuring Tanure Ojaide, U.S. based poet, novelist and scholar who will also conduct a poetry workshop.

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