[emj]

It is an ontological phenomenon that litters the landscape of literary imagining: so much has been written about London, New York, Dublin, Oxford, Cambridge, Morocco, Ibadan, Nsukka, Ife, Jo’Burg, and all spaces where man strives to manage self and nature, and it is understandable because writers are human beings whose sense of place and home and of space provides inspiration for romanticism or revulsion or protest or irridentism. What does it mean to live in a city? What does it mean to pass through a city and to be touched by its special identity? What is it about cities that moves artists to an imaginary land of expression? Catharsis? Identity? Or turmoil.

Through this selection, the “hunter-gatherer”of poems on and about Lagos succeeds in conveying the cosmopolitanism, the diversity, the energy and the verve of a city that accomodates all and leaves an impression at every encounter, even from a distance: the city of insiders and outsiders, the city of troubadours, of potentates and ordinary citizens, and with each poem from one generation to another, we gain a sense of a generational romance, and of a city with unfinished possibilities, a city with a future as Odia Ofeimun sets up a dialogue and draws our attention in the direction of a city and a poetic tradition around it. In his preface to the anthology, Ofeimun attempts a deliberately ambitious commentary in which he tries to address all questions about the centrality and value of the city of Lagos, and the politics of his composition.

Delightful Review of Odia's Book....Thanks Reuby