The Strange Moon Of Yenagoa For Unveiling At Goethe- Institut

EMERGING poet and culture producer, Samuel Osaze, will unveil his new collection of poems, Der Falsche Mond von Yenagoa / The Strange Moon of Yenagoa, to the public on June 25, 2022 at the Goethe- Institut Nigeria on Anifowoshe Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. Time is 12: 00 prompt.

Osaze’s book launch is also the inaugural edition of a new programme of the Institut, the Goethe- Institut Readers’ Corner.

The book is a collection of old and new poems published in German and English by Akono Verlag, Leipzig ( Germany).

As part of the launch, there will be an engaging conversation between the poet and the journalist and writer, Anote Ajeluorou ( author of Igho Goes to Farm and Libations for Africa).

The discourse will focus on issues about the Niger Delta region, with unrelenting oil exploitation that continues to despoil the ecosystem and impact negatively on the people, since the discovery of oil in the 1950s.

Osaze and Ajeluorou will also delve into other thematic concerns in the collection like police brutality and the performative nature of African oral literature and how the past could be used to shape the present. How are the past and present coalescing to forge a truly independent and self- reliant Africa?

“Samuel Osaze’s book of poetry, The Strange Moon of Yenagoa, is the poetry debut of Akono Verlag,” says founder/ CEO of Akono Verlag, Jona Krutzfeld. “The book has caused much admiration and emotion among us at the publishing house and the German readership. We are all the more pleased that, through the support of the Goethe- Institut Nigeria, the book can now be presented to its original readership. We wish Samuel Osaze continued success for his important poetry which comments on contemporary Nigeria in an evocative way.”

In a statement ahead of the unveiling, Osaze said that many of the poems in the collection equally cast light on the new trajectory in his creative sojourn as a poet and culture advocate. “Besides writing poetry of protestation, the need to use poetry as a bastion for documenting culture has also arisen,” he said.

Citing UNESCO’S forecast of endangered minority languages; the poet said some languages are threatened by extinction, “in particular are the minority languages like the Esan ethnic stock, of Edo State, Nigeria where I hail from. Since language is the vehicle through which culture is transmitted, you will find out that some of the poems here are literally reservoirs of some cultural practices that are near extinction, and again there is a deliberate infusion of the flora and fauna, folktales, songs and the rich oral tradition of the Esan people in my poetry, This is a conscious effort aimed at contributing my quota to the quest to rescue a dying culture.”