In the House of Words

by Tanure Ojaide

In his new collection, Nigeria’s leading poet and literary scholar reflects on social and political themes, popular culture and the impact of technology on tradition, religious evangelism in the indigenous culture, environmental degradation, home, migration and return. He introduces his work thus:

‘In the House of Words was inspired by my absence from family and friends in Charlotte and the United States, and the new environment I came home to in Nigeria. The return easily brought reminisces which kindled the imagination into poetic flights. I quested for experiences that would give colour and flavour to my songs… Wearing the mask of a homeboy minstrel, the homeboy “rediscovers” his home… There were also recollections of where I left… The homeboy is always aware of the larger Nigerian nation and the entire universe that all impact on him in a global age.'

The poems are different stations of a journey back into childhood, into the homeland, into the primeval world from which the poet earlier “exiled” himself and now seeks to be re- immersed in. It is a poetic quest, a rediscovery of self and others and the shaping of a new humanity from the postcolonial chaos of not just the Niger Delta but the whole world.”

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