This book provides an ecocritical analysis of the poetry of the famous Nigerian poet Niyi Osundare. It interrogates the intricate interface between time and nature in 11 of Osundare’s defining poetry collections. This is a book of postcolonial ecocriticism from an African perspective. It brings together the ecocritical theory of animism and theories of geologic time in the discussion of Osundare’s poetry. Osundare shows that animism has a lot to offer in enriching human understanding of the ecosystem. And while he eloquently catalogues problems undermining the health of the earth in this age of the Anthropocene and the Capitalocene in his poetry, he also holds on to the hope of a better future. The book concludes that Osundare’s optimism is what informs his use of poetry to press humankind to rise to the duty of salvaging the environment. Deploying an interdisciplinary approach that stretches across the fields of literature, religion, geology, physics, economics, and anthropology, this book will be an important read for those looking for fresh ways to understand Osundare’s poetry and African nature writing.

A lyrical and panoramic body of poems from the prize-winning poet, informed by a revolutionary vision about the earth, our home.

In this literary biography, Sule E. Egya, one of Nigeria's most promising scholar-critics, brings the skills of the storyteller and the scholar to bear on his recreation of the Osundare story. The result is a readable coming-of-age story that traces the writer's development from his rural and agrarian roots in Nigeria, through his education in Africa, Europe and North America, to his rise to prominence as one of the most versatile poets writing in English today. There can be no better platform to register the debt that Osundare owes his parentage, the rigorous discipline of his mentors and the diverse environments in which his outlook on the world has been shaped than this carefully crafted biography. Egya highlights Osundare's prodigious talent, his unwavering ethical compass, his infectious humanism, his enduring faith in the capacity of literature to reshape the world, and the harmony between his creative imagination and polemical writing. Readers and critics will find the biography an indispensable companion to reading Osundare not just because of the illuminating personal and cultural information that it offers, but also because it equally periodizes Osundare's work in a way no other book has done. Prof. Oyeniyi Okunoye, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife In Niyi Osundare: A Literary Biography, Sule E. Egya takes us on a journey of the life experiences of the artist-scholar Niyi Osundare. Indeed, there are some books a reader just can't put down. This is one of them. It takes you to the other worlds beyond the popular world of artistry and scholarship of one of Africa's most accomplished men of letters. Dr. Ogaga Okuyade, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island.

These poems from one of Africa's most highly acclaimed poets and the winner of the 1991 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, are an ironic celebration of collective aspirations, failures, guilts and hopes. They call for change in a society wracked with problems. The poet sets out to produce a collection that captures the significant happenings of the time in a tune that is simple, accessible, topical, relevant, and artistically pleasing and, as he puts it: 'to remind kings about the corpses which line their way to the throne, to show the rich the slums which fester behind their castles, to praise virtue, denounce vice, to mirror the triumphs and travails of the downtrodden, to celebrate the green glory of the rainy season and the brown accent of the dry, to distil poetry from the dust and clay of the vast, prodigious land - songs plucked from the lips of my land in its manifold laughters and sorrows.'

Includes articles, annotated filmography, interviews, creative writing, and book reviews.

Osundare advocates the poetry of performance- performance instructions and musical effects are part of the poems - as at once creative and deeply political. The present collection testifies, wholly convincingly, to the poet's belief that language - the Word - defines personal and social history, expression and identity. 'In the Beginning was not the Word/In the Word was the Beginning', launches the volume and is its constant refrain. Language may sometimes be impotent or illusory - the middle section, 'Silence', reflects upon political censorship, the struggle of illiteracy, and the agonies and ambivalence of writing in the colonial language. But words which commit to 'truth and dream', and preferably, 'throw bridges/Across gulfs of indifferent ears, are the poet's only tool of communication for change.

This wonderful new edition of Poems on the Underground is published to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Underground in 2013. Here 230 poems old and new, romantic, comic and sublime explore such diverse topics as love, London, exile, families, dreams, war, music and the seasons, and feature poets from Sappho to Carol Ann Duffy and Wendy Cope, including Chaucer and Shakespeare, Milton, Blake and Shelley, Whitman and Dickinson, Yeats and Auden, Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott and a host of younger poets. It includes a new foreword and over two dozen poems not included in previous anthologies.

Niyi Osundare, one of Africa's most prominent poets and resident of New Orleans, La was one of the many whose life was caught in the destructive force of hurricane Katrina. Rescued by a neighbor with a boat, losing all that he had, exiled without even an identification to several states, he returned to rebuild his life and house. Written over the last five years, these poems recount both his loss and a thank you to those who helped.

The second title in a poetry series for younger readers. The author introduces his own work: 'The poems in this series are designed to make you think as you sing, to help you discover the beauty of poetry as a companion of music and the product of human imagination... Many of the poems deal with nature and the environment; rural life and city life; time and the seasons; the foods you eat; little things and big things; 'riddles' which show you the difference between right and wrong; things which make you laugh or cry; and wise sayings which will help increase your wisdom...there are also poems about Nigeria our country, Africa our continent, and the world at large.' Niyi Osundare is perhaps Nigeria's greatest living poet, and one of Africa's finest literary scholars. He is the author of many books of poetry, plays and essays. He has received the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Association of Nigeria Authors' Prize and the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. His works have been translated into half a dozen languages. His poems are accompanied by illustrations and commentaries by fellow literature scholar Ayo Banjo.

Winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for 1986, Niyi Osundare is one of Nigeria's most prominent younger writers. This first collection of his poetry is the expression of a critical awareness in its exploration of the social situation in contemporary Nigeria. In an introduction, Biodun Jeyifo remarks that his distinctive voice is attributable to the fact that his verses confront both poetry of revolution and a revolution of poetry, in terms of forms and techniques. Thirty-five poems are included.