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Literatim
Düsseldorf, Germany    Hi, there! My name is Tim and I'm a former student of literary science and translation. I enjoy writing poetry and I'd be more than …
DiverseLiterati
15/F/Ghana.    Book, Food enthusiast and Aspiring Poet. Check out my work also on wattpad: @DiverseLiterati

Poems

James Gibek Jude Apr 2015
Sound of a pen clattering
Admonishing beauty of arts rendering
Lines of rhyme rhyming
Mixed with rhythm rhythming
Like a poem life flowing
Like a drama life pushing
Like a prose life rushing
And then comes representing
Unrepentant life projectoring
The literati's lyrical lyricalling
Recalling the gods of writing
With written words calling
Calling calling calling coming
And hence societal ills hiding
Bad leaders, leadership running
Disillusioned souls troubling
Marginalised masses crying
And crime rate like jet flying
Bombs like pure water exploding
Politicians still stealing and looting yet fearing
Fear! phobia! fear embracing
Minimum wage hurting Governors like bee stinging
Unemployment destroying like earthquaking
Half baked graduate graduating
Our education unseriously provoking
Undefined boundaries exposing
Immigrants immigrating
Police, Soldiers, customs, Road safety, etc all corrupting like they feeding...
Inec election in chaos resulting
Nigeria a name of peoples's confusing
NEPA, WATER, ROAD, HOSPITAL unrealistic absurding...
Corruption! corrupting!! corruptioning!!! Are we starting or finishing? Building or destroying?
The lyric of the literati busy deconstructing...
Two Bulgarian poets entered “The Second Genesis” – Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry – India’2014
Poems of the Bulgarian poets Bozhidar Pangelov and Mira Dushkova are included in the Indian project “The Second Genesis: An Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry”. Bozhidar Pangelov’s poems are: “Time is an Idea” and “…I hear” translated by Vessislava Savova; as for Mira Dushkova’s poems – “Beyond”, “Sozopolis” and “The Girl”, they were translated by Petar Kadiyski.


For the authors:
Bozhidar Pangelov was born in the soft month of October in the city of the chestnut trees, Sofia, Bulgaria, where he lives and works. He likes joking that the only authorship which he acknowledges are his three children and the job-hobby in the sphere of the business services. His first book Four Cycles (2005) written entirely with an unknown author but in a complete synchronous on motifs of the Hellenic legends and mythos. The coauthor (Vanja Konstantinova) is an editor of his next book Delta (2005) and she is the woman whom “The Girl Who…” (2008) is dedicated to. His last (so far) book is “The Man Who…” (2009). In June 2013 a bi lingual poetry book A Feather of Fujiama is being published in Amazon.com as a Kindle edition. Some of his poems are translated in Italian, German, Polish, Russian, Chinese and English languages and are published on poetry sites as well as in anthologies and some periodicals all over the world. Bozhidar Pangelov is on of the German project Europe takes Europa ein Gedicht. “Castrop Rauxel ein Gedicht RUHR 2010” and the project “SPRING POETRY RAIN 2012”, Cyprus.
Mira Dushkova (1974) was born in in Veliko Tarnovo, the medieval capital of Bulgaria. She earned a MA degree from the University of Veliko Tarnovo, and later on a PhD in Modern Bulgarian Literature, from Ruse University Angel Kanchev, in 2010, where she is currently teaching literature courses.
Her writing includes poetry, essays, literary criticism and short stories. She has published several poetry books in Bulgarian: “I Try Histories As Clothes“ (1998), „Exercise On The Scarecrow” (2000), „Scents and Sights“ (2004), literary monograph “Semper Idem : Konstantin Konstantinov. Poetics of the late stories“ (2012, 2013) and the story collection „Invisible Things“ (2014).
Her poems have been published in literary editions in Bulgaria, USA, Sweden, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Turkey and India. Some of her poems and essays have been first prize winners of different Bulgarian contests for literature.
She has attended poetry festivals in Bulgaria, Croatia (Zagreb) and Turkey (Istanbul and Ordu).
She lives in Ruse – Bulgaria.

For the Antology “The Second Genesis”:
In the anthology titled „The Second Genesis“ are published the poems of 150 poets from 57 countries. All poems are in English. The Antology consists of 546 pages. “The Second Genesis” includes authors’ and editors’ biographies and three indexes: of the authors; of the poem titles and an index based on the first verses. It is issued by “A.R.A.W.LII” (Academy of ‘raitɘ(s) And Word Literati) – an academy, which encourages literature and creative writing and realizes cultural connections between India and the other countries. Four times a year ARAWLII publishes in India the international magazine for poetry and creative writing „Prosopisia“. Its Chief Editor and President of A.R.A.W.LII is Prof. Anuraag Sharma. He is also author of Antology’s Introduction.
Participating Countries:
Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Albania, Great Britain, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Spain, Italy, Jordan, Canada, Cyprus, China, Kosovo, Cuba, Macao, Macedonia, Niger, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, USA, Singapore, Syria, Serbia, Taiwan, Tunis, Turkey, Fiji, Philippines, Finland, France, Holland, Croatia, Montenegro, Czech Republic, Chile, Sweden, Switzerland, Scotland, South Africa, Japan
For the editors:
Anuraag Sharma – editor and president of A.R.A.W.LII
Poet, critic, author of short stories, translator and playwrighter, Anuraag has to his credit the following publications: “Kiske Liye?”, “Punarbhava”, “Audhava”, Dimensions of the Angel: A Study of the poetry of Les Murray’s Poetry “Iswaswillbe” – a collection of short stories, “Setu” (“The Bridges”). He has also co-editor the volume of conference papers: ”Caring Cultures: Sharing Imaginations. Some of his recent publications include: “A Trilogy of plays”, “Mehraab” (“The Arch”) – translations of selected poems of four Canberra Poets, “Papa and Other Poems”, “Sau Baras Ka Sitara Eik” – translation of Andrew Parkin’s “A Star of Hundred Years”, “As if a wooden house I am”- translations of Surendra Chaturverdi, “Satish Verma: The Poet” and “Tere Jaane ke Baad Tere Aane as Pehle”. He is also editor-in-chief of two international journals – “Lemuria” and “Prosopisia”. Currently he is working as a Professor in English at Govt. College “Kekri” Ajmer, India.

Moizur Rehman Khan – co-redactor, project manager, secretary of A.R.A.W.LII
He studied Urdo and Persian Literature in college and later on competed his master degree in English literature from “Dayanand” College, Ajmer, India. He completed his research dissertation under the supervision of Anuraag Sharma on “Major themes in the poetry of Chris Wallas-Crabbe”. He is a creative writer. His poems and articles have been published in various magazines and journals. Currently he is teaching English at DMS, RIE, Ajmer, India.
References for the Antology:
“No middle no end, the poems in The Second Genesis have been speaking to you long before the beginning and will continue without you…don’t worry, its binding has long since unglued, its pages, worn and disheveled, will always be speaking to you, they’ve been compiled this way, to be read out of order, backwards, shelved or scattered in an attic between the coffee and greasy finger stains…The Second Genesis is the history of the Book where you become its words, ink and pulp.”
Craig Czury

“The Second Genesis is at the crossroads of a new poetic becoming. a poetry claiming its second beginning not only for art but the heart pulsating and feeding the entire body. This anthology is a successful fusion of unique, inimitable and polyphonic poetry, a well-organized improvisation with a solid and flexible structure.”

Dalia Staponkute

“The Second Genesis, a compendium of world poetry which is also a poetry of the world, suggests so much a new beginning as it does a recognition of the ongoing creation that continues to animate our collective existence. Our precarious era requires a global affirmation that we are all in this together. Poetry has always said as much, and here it says it again, in the idioms of our time.”
Paul Kane
**
“Visionary and international, The Second Genesis, introduced and edited by Anuraag Sharma, sparkles with poetry of insight, intelligence and feeling and is an indispensable reminder of our human aspirations and experience in the early 21st century. Poets from nearly sixty countries rub shoulders in this ambitious and wide-ranging collection, and their poems resonate and mingle in a multi-layered voice. It is the voice of our humanity.
In his Introduction, Dr. Sharma points to the invaluable importance of poetry in what he calls our destructive Lear era:
Beyond the Lear Century, across the 21st Century lies the island of Prospero and Ariel and Miranda and Ferdinand – the region of faith, hope and innocence, the land of virtue, and all forgiveness sans grievances, sans regrets, sans curses. The doleful shades lead to pastures new.
We must weigh our hopes. The Second Genesis is at hand….”
Diana Sampey
In response to a sardonic essay written in the recent Saturday Nation by Proffessor Ekara Kabaji, wryly  disregarding the position of Kwani in the global literary movement within and without Kenya , I beg to be permitted a leeway  to observe that any literature, orature, music,drama,cyborature,prisnorature,wallorature,streetorature , sculptor  or painting can effortlessly thrive and off course it has been thriving without professors of  literature, but the reverse is not possible as a proffessor of literature cannot be when literature is not there. Facts in support of this position are bare and readily available in the history of world literature, why they may not be seen is perhaps the blurring effects from tor like protuberant irrelevance of professors of literature in a given literary civilization.
A starting point is that literature exists as a people’s subculture, it can be written or not written like the case of orature which survive as an educative and aesthetic value stored in the collective memory of the given people. The people to be pillars of this collectivity of the memory are not differentiated by academic ranking for superlativity of any reason, but they are simply a people of that place, that community, that time, that heritage, that era and that collective experience. Writing it down is an option, but novels and other written matter is not a sine qua non for existence of literature in such situations. This is not a bolekaja of literature as Proffessor Ekara Kabaji would readily put, but it is a stretch towards realism that it is only people’s condition that creates literature. Poverty, slavery, colonialism, ***, marriage, circumcision, migration, or any other conditions experienced as collective experience of the people is stored or even stowed away in the collective memory of the people as their literature. Literature does not come from idealistic imagination of an educated person.
Historical experience of written literature informs us that the good novels, prose, drama and poetry were written before human society had people known as professors of literature. I want you my dear reader and You-Tube audience to reflect on the Cantos of Dante Alighieri in Italy, novels of Geoffrey Chaucer in England, Herman Melville and his Moby **** in Americas, poetry of Omar khwarisim in Persia, Homeric epics of Odyssey in Greece and the Makonde sculptures of Africa and finally link your reflections to Romesh Tulsi who grafted the Indian epic poetry of Ramayana and Mahabharata. At least you must realize that in those days literature was good, full of charm, very aesthetic and superbly entertaining. This leads to a re-justification that, weapon of theory is not useful in literature. University taught theories of literature have helped not in the growth of literature as compared to the role played by folk culture.
Keen observation will lead you dear reader, down to revelations that; professors of literature squarely depend on the thespic work of the people who are not substantially educated to make a living. Let me share with you the story about Dr. Tom Odhiambo who went to University of Witwasterand in South Africa for post graduate studies in literature only to do his Doctoral research on books of David G Maillu. Maillu is a Kenyan writer, he did not finish his second year of secondary school education but he has been successfully writing poetry and prose for the past three decades. His successful romantic work is After 4.30, probably sarcasm against Kenyan office capitalism, while his eclectic, philosophical and scholarly work is the Broken Drum. Maillu has many other works on his name. But the point is that Dr. Odhiambo now teaches at University of Nairobi in the capacity of senior lecturer in Literature. What makes him to put food on the table is the effort of un-educated person in the name of David Maillu. Dr.Odhiambo himself has not written any book we can mention him for, apart from regular literary journalism he is often involved in on the platforms of the Literary discourse in the Kenyan Saturday Nation which are in turn regular Harangues and ripostes among literature teachers at the University of Nairobi, the likes of Dr Siundu, Proffessor wanjala Chris and Evans Mwangi just but to mention by not being oblivious to professors; Indangasi and Shitanda.
No study has yet been done to establish the role of university professors on growth of African literature. One is overdue. Results may be positive role on negative role, myself I contemplate negative role. Especially when I reflect on how the African literati reacted on the publication of Amos Tutuola’s book The Palm Wine Drinkard. The reactions were more disparaging than appreciative. Taban Lo Liyong reacted to this book by calling Amos Tutuola the son of Zinjathropus as well as taking a self styled intellectual responsibility in form of writing a more  schooled version of this book; Taking Wisdom up the Palm Tree. Nigerians of Igbo (Tutuola being a Yoruba) nation cowed from being associated with the book as it had shamefully broken English, broken grammar etc. Wole Soyinka had a blemished stand, but it is only Achebe who came out forthrightly to appreciate the book in its efforts to Africanize English for the purpose of African literature. Courtesy of Igbo wisdom. But in a nutshell, what had happened is that Amos Tutuola had taken a plunge to contribute towards written literature in Africa.
One more contemplated result from the research about professors and African literature can be that apart from their role of criticism, professors write very boring books. A ready point of reference is deliberate and reasonless obscurantism taken Wole Soyinka in all of his books, Soyinka’s books are difficult to understand, sombre, without humour and not capable to entertain an average reader. In fact Wole Soyinka has been writing for himself but not for the people. No common man can quote Soyinka the way Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is quoted. Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart when he had not began his graduate studies. However, he did not escape the obvious mistake of professors to become obscure in the Anthills of the Savanna, the book he wrote when he had become a proffessor. This is on a sharp contrast to entertaining effectiveness, simplicity and thematic diversity of Captain Elechi Amadi, Amadi who studied chemistry but not literature. He does not have a second degree, but his books from the Concubine, The great Ponds, and Sunset in the Biafra and Isibiru are as spellbinding as their counterparts in Russia.
Kenyan scenario has Ngugi wa Thiongio, he displayed eminence in his first two books; Weep not Child and The River Between. These ones he wrote when he was not yet educated, as he was still an undergraduate student at Makerere University. But later on Ngugi became a victim of prosaic socialism, an ideology that warped his literary imagination only to put him in a paradoxical situation as an African communist who works in America as an English teacher at Irvine University. His other outcrops are misuse of Mau Mau as a literary springboard and campaigning for use of Kikuyu dialect of the Gema languages to become literary Lingua Franca in Kenya. Such efforts of Ngugi are only a disservice to Kenyan literature in particular and African literature collectively. Ngugi having been a student of Caribbean literature has failed to borrow from global literary behaviour of Vitian S. Naipaul.  Ngugi’s position also contrasts sharply with Meja Mwangi whose urban folksy literature swollen with diversity in themes has remained spellbinding entertainers.
The world’s literary thirsty has never failed to get palatable quenching from the works of Harriet Bechetor Stowe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Shakespeare, Alice Munro, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, John Steinbeck, Garcia Guarbriel Marguez,Salman Rushdie, Lenrie Peters, Cyprian Ekwenzi, Nikolai Gogol,I mean the list is as long as the road from Kaduna to Cape town. Contribution of these writers to global literature has been and is still critical. Literature could not be without them. Surprisingly, most of them are not trained in literature; they don’t have a diploma or a degree in literature, but some have won literature Nobel Prize and other prizes. Alfred Nobel himself the author of a classical novella, The Nemesis, does not have University education in literature. What else can we say apart from acceding to the truth that literature can blossom without professors, the Vis-à-vis an obvious and stark impossibility.