Journalist and culture activist turned academic Nduka Otiono has released his latest poetry collection, ‘DisPlace’.
The 134-page book published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press and released on October 19 is already gathering rave reviews.
Commenting on the collection, Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada, 2016-17, George Elliott Clarke wrote, “‘DisPlace’ is the contradictory being of Nduka Otiono: He’s “here” in Canada, but he’s also a dissident resident of Nigeria. He exists in the self-appointed Shangri-La that is the once-boastfully slaveholding Americas, but he insists on remaining the anointed exorcist of an Africa still decadent with bullets, with “militicians,” who play baboons rather than messiahs.”
Professor of Literature in English and former Dean of The Faculty of Humanities at The National University of Lesotho, Roma, Chris Dunton, also wrote: “The most personal of Otiono’s poems are mostly elegiac, with death pawing at the door, and the language swaying with a new, lithe spring to it and the strength one associates with fine, high-tensile wire. The poet’s imagistic reflections on life are at once sonorous, contemplative, bold, and defiant.”
Announcing the collection’s release, Otiono, Assistant Professor at the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, said:
“So, finally, 𝑫𝒊𝒔𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆 has been emplaced in our world. Join me in celebrating the arrival of this new book, midwifed by Wilfrid Laurier University Press. And for those of you already inboxing me about the title, let me quickly state that the collection’s title is a pun on “displace” and the Pidgin for “this place.”
Thank you, Chris Dunton, Peter Midgley, Clare Hitchens, Victor Ekpuk Studio, Victor Ekpuk, Tanis McDonald, Siobhan McMenemy, Uche Peter Umez, and many others. Please get your copies from major online book vendors and traditional bookstores across Canada and internationally.”
The poems in ‘DisPlace’ are from Otiono’s two published collections, ‘Voices in the Rainbow’ and ‘Love in a Time of Nightmares’. The volume also includes previously unpublished new poems.
