Lucidity of Absurdity (Poetry)
Now Available on www.amazon.com
About the Book:
Lucidity of Absurdity by Olumide Olaniyan narrates human struggle for survival and progress, it focuses on issues of power relations, human differences and everyday trials that have rooted individuals and societies to their varying human conditions.
The book contains 60 poems and is divided into five parts:
Part one focuses on politics and powers relations between the rulers and the people.
Part two highlights the issue of environmental degradation and its impact on human life. It tracks how despoliation of the ecosystem by human beings in their greed to accumulate wealth has boomeranged and worsened relationship between human and nature.
Part three explains why the pendulum of power swings always in the direction of the privileged class and how this absurdity magnifies social fault lines.
Part four dwells on lucidity of human capacity to love and their struggle with innate sensuality based on morality and related sociocultural ethos. It emphasises the axiom that for every action, there is a reaction.
Part five expounds on realism of human conditions – birth, fate and death, etc. It explores philosophical thoughts, such as, irrationalism, experientialism and existentialism, amongst others, to explain human behaviour.
Usage and Relevance
Reviews: Lucidity of Absurdity has enjoyed a number of reviews from academics and writers, including:
1. The Poetical in the Political by Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, A review of Lucidity of Absurdity 'The Poetical in the Political' by BookArtVille, an online Literature, Culture & Media magazine
2. A Review of Lucidity of Absurdity by Ola Taju in Dugwe, A e-journal of Abuja Writers Forum (AWF), Issue 3, July – September, 2018.
3. "Paradigm Shift in Classical Literary Criticism: How Not to Assess the Poetry of Olumide Olaniyan" by Al-Bishak PhD, in Keffi International Journal of Science and Humanities (KIJOSH) Vol. 1. No. 1, January, 2019, A Publication at Nasarawa State University
Reading Material in Institutions: Additionally, it is being used for teaching in academic institutions, including at:
4. Selected poems – 'Sons of the giant' and 'Lucidity of absurdity' – from Lucidity of Absurdity are being used to teach Introduction to African Poetry, Department of English, American University of Nigeria, Yola, Nigeria. 2018/2019.
5. 'Déjà vu', a poems from Lucidity of Absurdity being used to teach 'Introduction to Nigerian Literature', (Poetry and Drama) English Department, Federal College of Education (FCE), Pankshin, Plateau state, Nigeria (2018/19).
6. 'Déjà vu' , a poem from Lucidity of Absurdity dramatised in hard-to-reach communities in Nasarawa state and Abuja, Nigeria in 2018/2019 with the support of MacArthur, 2018/2019.
7. 'Postcolonial Analysis of Olumide Olaniyan Poems', A thesis (ongoing) by Oyebanke Wura Oyelaja, Department of English and Literature, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria, 2019
Selected comments and blurbs from poets, writers, academics, students, include the following:
Blurbs
8. 'In Plato's Republic, poets are to be ostracized because poetry is putatively an inauthentic simulacrum of reality. But in powerful, inspired, and evocative verses, Olumide Olaniyan's Lucidity of Absurdity explodes the Platonic distrust of the veridical capacities of poetic imagination. With clear, vivid imagery and strikingly resonant metaphors, Olaniyan's poems both encapsulate and illuminate quotidian reality with such clarity, such manifest authenticity, and such delightfully homespun witticisms that Plato would certainly make an exception for this poet. Poem after poem, the reader is regaled with a charmingly masterful unraveling of the labyrinthine complexity of the human condition. The felicitous wordage of the poems, the spellbinding mellifluousness of their rhythm, and the sheer infectious stylistic gusto of the writer conspire to transport the reader to dizzyingly ethereal heights from where he never wants to descend. Lucidity of Absurdity is, in sum, a poetic tour de force that is sure to entrance the soul. It is highly recommended to all lovers of the creative enterprise.'
- Farooq Kperogi, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Journalism and Emerging Media, School of Communication and Media, Kennesaw State University, USA.
9. 'In an album of 60 meditative pieces, Olumide Olaniyan celebrates the sagely turn in lyric poetry.'
- Victor Ayedun-Aluma, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Mass Communication, University of Jos, Nigeria.
10. 'Words, words and words egg us on! … Olumide Olaniyan's poems in Lucidity of Absurdity have launched him unto the trail of enviable verse-smiths.'
- Eddie Onuzuruike, Author of The Stable Tripod
Other commentaries
11. 'The well-worn saying by Aristotle that man is a political animal is of essence in the poetical offering of Olumide Olaniyan. The poet makes his voice count in the public space as opposed to private-hewn obscurantism. There is no ambivalence in Olaniyan's renditions. The clarity of his vision does not suffer any escape into affectation.'
- Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, Author of God of Poetry
12. 'In general terms, Olaniyan's poetry collection titled "Lucidity of Absurdity", is a blistering satire that bleeds the society against oppression which he sees as an 'absurdity'. In a sense, his poetry casts him in the mould of artists that may be categorized as practitioners of absurdist literature.'
- Al-Bishak, PhD, Department of English, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Nigeria.
13. 'My first read was full of restlessness, for the poems that make up the collection are such that would casually lead you to higher ground: height taller than Mount Everest, and then toss you off the cliff as if you are nothing but a speck of dust. Either you choose the free fall or Pro-dive, you would keep falling page by page, heart first into its well woven and spell binding trap of words.'
- Ola Taju, Nigerian poet
14. 'Olumide Olaniyan uses a wide variety of literary terms in the dissemination of his thoughts. His linguistic use of literary devices especially imagery and allusions; elucidates such mastery of not only the English language but also an array of literary devices which he uses as a vehicle to project his thoughts to the reader.'
- Oyebanke Oyelaja, Student, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun state, Nigeria.
About the Author:
Olumide Olaniyan is an author, satirist, social scientist and historian. He was born in Lagos, Nigeria. He debuted his collection of poems – Lucidity of Absurdity – in March 2017. His short stories and poems have been published in newspapers, magazines and anthologies in and outside Nigeria. His poem, "Behind Closed Doors", won the maiden edition of Communicators League Creative Writing Contest 2017. His two poems, Déjà vu and Dire Silence have been adapted into community dramas. Another poem, "One Sojourn of the Moon" received an honorary mention in the Mandela Day Poetry Competition 2016. Three of his poems were also published in Issue 02 of Dugwe. Olumide works and resides in Abuja, Nigeria.
olumide
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Olumide Olaniyan
Author,
Lucidity of Absurdity
Abuja – Nigeria
Email: olumydes@yahoo.co.uk
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