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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Poetry in East Africa |
Author: | Reed, J. |
Year: | 1967 |
Periodical: | Mawazo |
Volume: | 1 |
Issue: | 4 |
Pages: | 31-36 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | East Africa |
Subjects: | poetry (form) anthologies (form) |
Abstract: | It is in anthologies that 'African Poetry' still mainly exists as something in its own right. Although most of its poetry comes from the French West Indies, Senghor's Anthologie de la Nouvelle Poesie Negre et Malgache (1948 in a sense created the concept of African poetry. His idea of 'black poetry' never caught on as an anthologizing principle in the English-speaking world. The regional anthology of African poetry goes back to Olumbe Bassir's An Anthology of nest African Verse (1957) and included translations of French West African poetry. Donatus Nwoga's West African Verse follows the same pattern. The anthology Drum Beat: East African Poems, chosen by Lennard Okola, is in several ways a new departure: it confines itself entirely to poems originally written in English; it includes poets of non-East African, indeed non-African origin. The author critically analyses this anthology. |