Tope Omoniyi
In this witty but serious collection, the poet looks askance at injustices and pains of the present and recent past. In the title poem and others, he asks, ’how the hell/Chicken generals figured they could run a nation/From the DIY book of trash’. Other targets includes generals or executors, and the apolitical - pacifists and the apathetic, and the hypocrisy of the wealthy ’who bake the crumbs/to feed continents of beggars/that hide behind cliched histories’. Protest poetry at least offers some hope - a voice. The poet urges, ’rise poets, write/fight and bite/and die for price/set kites to flight/and fife for life/rise poets rise’. Omoniyi is a senior lecturer in English and Modern Language at the University of Surrey, in the UK. Many of these poems have previously appeared in journals in Africa, Asia, Europe and the US.
