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Niyi Osundare International Poetry Festival Holds July

The 2019 edition of the Niyi Osundare International Poetry Festival (NOIPOFEST) will hold from July 15 to 17 at the University of Calabar, Calabar, Cross River State.

The eminent critic and academic, Professor Biodun Jeyifo, who recently retired from Harvard University, will deliver the keynote speech entitled ‘Popular Poetry and the Search for Development in the Modern State’.

According to a statement signed by the Festival Director, Tunde Laniyan, other academics who will speak at the fifth edition of the festival include professors JOJ Agbada, Saleh Abdu and Joe Ushie. Others are Dr Obari Gomba and poet Odia Ofeimun.

Laniyan added that the festival would, as usual, feature poetry, music, theatre, dance and drumming. 

NOIPOFEST started five years ago in honour of the multiple award-winning Osundare, a world-class academic, dramatist and poet who previously taught at the Department of English, University of Ibadan.

He is the author of exciting poetry collections, including ‘Songs from the Marketplace’, ‘Village Voices’, ‘Waiting Laughters’, ‘Tender Moments’ and ‘City without People: The Katrina Poems’.

 Professor Tunji Olaopa, Executive Vice Chairman of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy, delivered the keynote address at last year’s festival held at Lead City University, Ibadan. It had ‘Literature and Governance: Finding the Convergence for National Development’ as its theme.