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The Contemporary Phase of African Poetry


The Contemporary Phase
There is no absolute distinction between this third phase that we have just been considering and the fourth phase which we have called contemporary poetry writing. But at the same time, it is clear from such a poem as Kofi Anyidoho’s “Hero and thief’ that some of the new poetry is, indeed, attaining the appropriation of Africa’s spiritual heritage. For in them “custom” has, indeed, become “the spreading laurel tree”. We do not claim that this is the only way in which the younger contemporary poets are writing or should write. In fact, some of Anyidoho’s poetry remains impenetrable as a result of the intensity of the traditional idiom.
But what we see happening in people like Muckhtarr or Niyi Osundare or Funso Ayejina is that the intensity of their understanding of the traditional aesthetic has made their exploration and their grasp of the contemporary situation firmer and their poetry more expressive and more resonant. It is because of this close link between traditional African poetry and what we describe as modem African poetry that we have chosen to begin this anthology with a representative sample of the traditional poetry.

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