Reminder: Femrite Regional Women Writers' Residence

And if you're yet to apply for the Femrite Regional Women Writers' Residence, you've still got two weeks, or something close to it.

I posted this earlier on the blog. Just click on the highlight above. 

Goodluck!

Three New Poems

I have three new poems in Bakwa Magazine

Read and enjoy!

Voluntary Exile

You who ate the light of the sun at dusk
the age of your fears is in my head
I have seen the consent in your eyes
ditch thoughts have formed,
water makes a skin on your malar. (READ MORE HERE ON THE WEBSITE)

Applications due for Virtual Poetry Seminars (Advanced Poetry Seminar & Poetry Masterclass)

The University of Iowa's International Writing Program is proud to present two online, seven-week poetry writing courses this May. The Advanced Poetry Seminar is for strong, emerging writers, while the Poetry Masterclass is for published writers. Each course will include seven live online sessions and will be conducted via virtual classroom software/ The only technical requirements are a computer, a stable internet connection, and a headset. The course is free of charge and all sessions will be conducted in English

More Info on the Iowa International Writing Program

A Poem: The City Worker

You, with eyes seeing beyond the horizon of the skies waiting for sunrise, know

The dash of red painted on the wrinkles of cloud and fired sun is,

The companion to the sweat and drudge that you shoulder for this Babel city.

Between the pierce of alarm clocks, phones and screaming babies,                  

The wake is permanent.

For survival

Is dawn carrying numberless feet into dusk;

When the wages of work speak dearth

But dependants assume abundance and decipher meanness.

Desire is a good thing when age is not running with time; you labour in wait

Until your shirts bear sweat maps that soap detergents would not clean,

You are reminded of the arrival of retirement and departure of dreams.

A new life is when the beer houses trade your last coins

For the invention of new dreams,

Waiting to be whipped each night to remain dead.

As you return home to a barren house and an empty food cupboard,

You learn

Home is a suffering of disappearing relatives. 

The cycle has not even begun for the secret of city wealth is to hope

That the fickle would become the fortune;

And every cranny could make a valley and drainages may become streams.

In summary: as the last paragraph of your life would narrate

Universal aspirations: love, fear, hope, dreams, even laziness

For a life like yours is summed as one that never worked enough

You, do not know when you finally die

Perhaps it was in dreaming of having what you never owned

(c) Jumoke Verissimo 2013

10 Nigerian writers discuss what mean Chinua Achebe’s death means to them.

The moment news broke about the death of Africa’s foremost novelist, Chinua Achebe, one of the first feelings that came rushing in after the sadness for the loss of a man so beloved is a personal questioning of what the passing really means. By the time he died at 82, he had published five novels (one of which is the magnum opus Things Fall Apart), four children’s books, poetry, short stories, and a number of essays. He was arguably the continent’s most famous novelist. But he was gone (and for those who had never met him except through his famous works, he had left far earlier, perhaps after A Man of the People).

http://nigerianstalk.org/2013/04/05/editorial-17-what-does-it-mean/

The Melita Hume Poetry Prize is here again!

THE MELITA HUME POETRY PRIZE is an award of £1,000 and a publishing deal with Eyewear Publishing Ltd., for the best first full collection of a young poet writing in the English language, 35 years of age or under. The aim of this prize is to support younger emerging writers during difficult economic times. This is open to any one of the requisite age, of any nationality, resident in the United Kingdom and Ireland.  It is free to enter. READ MORE 

The Prize winner for 2012 was Caleb Klaces. You can read his poems HERE.  Also, a friend of mine, Dami Ajayi was on the shortlist. The prize was open to poets anywhere who write in English. This time it is open only to poets 35 years of age or under from anywhere in the world, but  must be currently resident in the United Kingdom and Ireland. 

Well, if you do fit in, do send in your poems. 

The Association of Nigerian Authors calls for entries for its 2013 Annual Literary Prizes

The Association of Nigerian Authors [ANA] hereby calls for entries for its 2013 Annual Literary Prizes.

Nigerian writers, home and abroad, desirous of entering their works for the Annual Literary Prizes, may now do so. Works entered should have been published between March 2012 and May2013.


REQUIREMENTS

Six copies (6) of the book or manuscript to be entered, specifying the Prize being entered for, alongside a covering letter and the photocopy of a receipt evidencing payment of annual dues to a State Chapter in the year of entry (2013) should be sent to:

The General Secretary,
Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA),
C/o Suite 63,
National Theatre Complex,
Iganmu
Lagos.

The covering letter should contain accurate contact details of the writer or/and publisher of the work, including email and surface mail addresses and telephone numbers. The Association will not take responsibility for entries sent by post nor will it claim registered parcels in cases where it has to pay for such parcels.

Multiple entries, where applicable, are allowed but a work must not have been entered for the same prize prior to the present entry and it must have been published between March 2012 and May2013:


PRIZES

ANA/Chevron Prose Prize on Environmental Issues (Prose) $2,000.00 (published works only).

ANA/Esiaba Irobi Prize for Playwrighting. N50, 000.00 (published & unpublished works).

ANA/Lantern Books Prize for Children’s Fiction N 100, 000.00 (unpublished works only, ages 8 – 15). Winning entry to be published by Lantern Books.

ANA Prize for Poetry (published & unpublished) – N 100, 000.
ANA Prize for Prose Fiction (published & unpublished) – N 100, 000.
ANA Prize for Drama (published & unpublished) – N 100, 000.
ANA Prize for Literary Journalism – N 100, 000 (Deadline: September 30, 2012).
ANA/NECO Teen Author Prize (prose) N 100, 000.00 (published & unpublished works).
ANA/Mazariyya Teen Author Prize (poetry) N 50, 000.00 (published & unpublished works).

PREREQUISITES: All entries must be accompanied with the photocopy of an official RECEIPT from a State Chapter of ANA evidencing payment of dues for the year of entry—2012.

SPECIFIC GUIDELINES for Teen Authors Prize (published and unpublished works).

1.            Entrants must be students in any secondary school in Nigeria.
2.            Entries must be a collection or a single story of between 35 – 40 pages for prose or poetry.
3.            Illustration (optional).
4.            Accompanying documents are:

(i) Signed letter of identification from school principal on school letterhead.
(ii) Two passport photographs, name, and copy of birth certificate of the entrant.
(iii) Entrant's school admission letter (photocopy).
(iv) Current cumulative record of entrant’s academic performance (junior or secondary school).
(v) Letter of consent from parents.
(vi) Entrant’s [or their guardian’s] email, and surface mail address and phone number.

5.            Unpublished entries (in four copies) should be properly bound.


Deadline for the receipt of ALL entries, excepting the Prize for Literary Journalism, for the 2012 ANA Literary Prizes is May 30, 2013. A shortlist will be announced in early October, 2013.

Winners of the prizes will be announced by the judges at the Awards Dinner during the 32nd International Annual Convention of the Association of Nigerian Authors in October, 2013.


BMDzukogi

General Secretary

Got this from the Association of Nigerian Authors Website