If Only the Road Could Talk: Poetic Peregrinations in Africa, Asia, and Europe - Softcover

Niyi Osundare

Softcover

ISBN 10: 156902524X ISBN 13: 9781569025246

Publisher: Africa World Press, Inc., 2017

Synopsis

About two decades in the making, this is a new volume of poetry on Niyi Osundare s journeys in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Running through the poems is the poet s exploration of the ways places make people and people make places, and the primordial role of the road as agent of separation and connection. The poet s peregrinations take him through an astounding array of the world s landscapes, historical landmarks, and cultural particularities, producing a multiplicity of ideas which demonstrate the essential similarities in the human experience. The local deepens the global, the global broadens the local as continents re-figure the oceans which wash their feet, even in the face of the politics which police socio-economic inequities in and across the nations. In this body of poems, some world cities tell their stories while the poet listens; the road walks ahead while the poet regards its footsteps. Diverse, passionate, colorful, irresistibly lyrical, and deeply humane, these are new, engaging offerings from one of the world s most significant contemporary poets.

About this title

About the Author

NIYI OSUNDARE is the author of 18 books of poetry, four plays and numerous essays on African literature and culture. He is the winner of many important prizes, including the Noma Award, the Tchicaya U Tam'si Poetry Prize, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, and the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Poetry Prize. In 2014 he was admitted to the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM), Nigeria s highest award for distinguished creative and intellectual achievements. He is currently Distinguished Professor of English at the University of New Orleans, USA.

About this edition

• Publisher: Africa World Press, Inc.
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 156902524X
• ISBN 13: 9781569025246
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Dele Jegede