Poetry #CFS | The Afro: Genesis of a Pan-African Poetic Genre

Call for Submissions

Deadline: August 31, 2021.

Prof Adams Bodomo and a group of African poetry practitioners and enthusiasts plan on organizing an online workshop during which they aim to produce a new or renewed African written poetic genre tentatively titled the ‘afro’.

Many cultures and literary traditions have evolved various kinds of poetic genres. For instance, in much of Europe and the western world, there is the sonnet, among many other forms of poetry. The Japanese have their haiku and it is one of their salient poetic genres. The Koreans have their sijo, just to mention a few genres around the world…..and Africans, what do we have? While there are many oral poetry genres in Africa, African poets are yet to evolve a unitary pan-African written poetic genre.

This workshop aims to assemble a group of established and budding African poets at an intellectual event that produces the outlines and constraints of a poetry genre called the afro…or something similar.

For instance, the afro could be seen as a poem of a limited number of lines, say 10 lines, divided into three parts: the first part (two to three lines) introduces a theme or raises a problem; the second part (three to five lines expands or complicates the plot, and third part (two to three lines) resolves the problem or explains the theme!

Guidelines

Entrants must be citizens of any African country or members of the African diaspora.
You may send in not more than two original and unpublished poems of 10 lines each.
All entries must be parallel-texted in the current official languages of African countries such as English, French and Portuguese AND in any African language, such as Swahili, Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Zulu, Arabic, Lingala, Akan, Ewe, and Wolof.
Entries must be typed in Microsoft Word, Times New Roman, font 12, 1.5 spacing.

5.Entrants should indicate on the first page of their entries, their names, emails, nationality, and telephone numbers.

Entries may be sent as attachments to afropoemsafrik@gmail.com For the purpose of this workshop the ‘afro’ is defined as a pan-African written poetic genre of 10 lines, rhymed or in free verse, divided into three parts: the first part (three lines) introduces a theme or raises a problem; the second part (five lines) expands or complicates the plot, and the third part (two lines) resolves the problem or explains the theme!

Selection criteria include originality, creative use of the semi-structured nature of the afro, demonstration of competence in parallel-texting the afro that emphasises proficient use of the African language chosen.

The workshop will involve discussion of the selected poems and giving their authors the opportunity to revise them.

Output: A selection of the top 100 poems will be published in a book tentatively titled: