The Word is an Egg

by Niyi Osundare

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.

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