Artmosphere, one of Nigeria’s leading culture, literature and arts events will be hosting three poets in the city of Lagos. The event will involve poetry readings and conversations from the myriad themes written by the poets. Poets, Peter Akinlabi, winner of the Sentinel Quarterly Poetry Competition and author of the Akashic chapbook, A Pagan Place, Niran Okewole, winner of the Muson Prize for Poetry and author of The Hate Artist, and Femi Morgan, arts curator and author of Renegade. The Artmosphere Lagos event is in collaboration with Khalam editions, an imprint of an avant-garde publishing house, Khalam Publishers.
It is scheduled for 2PM on Saturday, 3rd of September, 2016 at the Patabah Bookstore, Shop B 18, Adeniran Ogunsanya Shopping Mall, Adeniran Ogunsanya Street, Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria.
Artmosphere has chosen these three poets for their philosophic disposition to persona, racial and global discourses, for their penchant to write outside the orientation of the popular style and artistic crafting. The book parley will be a gathering of Lagos residents and individuals who are interested in open conversations about art, social, political and cosmopolitan issues that affect our lives.
Artmosphere has curated literature, arts and culture events in Ibadan for the past five years. It has hosted writers, poets, philosophers, social and culture activists in the country, like Niyi Osundare, Tanure Ojaide, Sam Omatseye, Victor Ehikhamenor, Tunde Adegbola, Efe Paul Azino, Aiye Ola Mabiaku, Jumoke Verissimo, Funmi Aluko, Ifeoluwa Adeniyi, Saddiq Dzukogi, Ahmed Maiwada, amongst others. It has also organized the Writer’s Notable Series, occasional readings in honour of exceptional writers and creative mentors in Nigeria, which hosted Tade Ipadeola in Lagos, in 2013. Artmosphere Lagos will offer the Lagos public the arts, culture and literature conversations that has become a staple in the city of Ibadan.
Profiles
Peter Akinlabi
Peter Akinlabi lives and works in Ilorin. His poems have been published Maple Tree Literary Supplement, Sentinel Quaterly, Sentinel Nigeria, elsewhere lit.org, and Saraba magazine. He was shortlisted for the Brunel Poetry Prize instituted by the University of Brunel, UK, he won the Sentinel Quarterly Poetry Competition in 2009 and the Okigbo Prize for Poetry in 2001. He is a festival guest at the forthcoming Lagos International Poetry Festival 2016.
Akinlabi’s chapbook, A Pagan Place is part of the Akashic Books’ Chapbook set, which showcases Eight New Generation African Poets edited by Chris Ubani and Kwame Davis in 2015. SarabaMag’s review of the chapbook notes that ‘There is the telescoping metaphors. This is writing in geometric progression. Metaphors illuminating metaphors in a dizzying journey into a maze of symbols. Metonyms do not story too far from which they are stripped…’
Niran Okewole
Niran Okewole is a poet, playwright and psychiatrist. He won the Muson Festival Poetry Prize in 2002 and 2003, and the Sawuboma MusicJam/Berlin International Poetry Festival in 2008. His poems have appeared in several publications, such as Farafina, Lyrikline.org, African Writing, African Writers.org, Mindfire Review. His first collection of poems, Logarhythms was published in 2005, and his recent work, The Hate Artist, was published in 2015. Okewole was festival guest at the Ake Arts and Book Festival. He is also a festival guest at the forthcoming Lagos International Poetry Festival 2016. He lives in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria.
A Review of Niran Okewole’s The Hate Artist on Medium.com said ‘The mind of Niran Okewole is a mobile library of new stories and old ones, his craft is unhindered by rules of watered-down simplification that has become the new order of Nigerian poetry.The Hate Artist reinvents and engages cultural knowledge, history and sociopolitical evolutions in the world. The Hate Artist also codifies simple but important events with new faces playing out old roles without knowing it’. Niran Okewole’s works are published by Khalam Editions, an imprint of Khalam Publishers.
Femi Morgan
Femi Morgan lives in perpetual transit between Lagos and Ibadan. He is an arts curator and a creative director at a content management firm. He was longlisted for the Poetry Prize in 2015 and nominated for the 2015 Writivism Poetry Workshop in Uganda. His works have been featured in Eureka Street, African Writer, Sentinel Nigeria, Jalada.org, Ink Sweat and Tears and Saraba Magazine. He is the author of the poetry chapbook, Silent Drummings published in 2008, created and co-edited the Sankofa Poetry Chapbook in 2015.
Renegade is his first collection of Poetry. Renegade is published digitally by Baron’s Café and published in print by Khalam Editions, an imprint of Khalam Publishers. Stephanie Shonekan, music scholar at the University of Missouri, USA, describes Renegade as ‘surprising morsels of imagery and symbolism. He uses words, metaphors and phrasing that paints pictures of realism and fantasy. His references swing widely from the local to the global, from Sango to Skype, and from bitter leaf Soup to Oprah’.