Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - STAR AWARD: Prof. Niyi Osundare Gets Nigerian National Order of Merit Award 2014 !

niyi is a champion. i am delighted to join others in congratulating him.
ken
On 11/25/14, 7:50 PM, 'ugwuanyi Lawrence' via USA Africa Dialogue Series
wrote:
> The lyrical poet who sings with words and kneads words as a tailor would, to and on a cotton, surely deserves this award.
>
> Perhaps this is one award that can give meaning to awards- this later times of many questionable awards.
>
> Congrats to the renown minstrel who ministers life and laughter with words !
>
> Lawrence Ogbo Ugwuanyi.
> GZU-Zimbabwe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Tue, 11/25/14, olugbenga Ojo <olugbenga.ojo@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - STAR AWARD: Prof. Niyi Osundare Gets Nigerian National Order of Merit Award 2014 !
> To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
> Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2014, 4:12 PM
>
> congratulations!!!!!!
>
> On Tue, Nov 25, 2014
> at 8:32 AM, Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> Great news, thoroughly merited by a great fellow -
> Olu Rasco, my "senior college brother"!
>
> _______________________________________________
> November
> 25, 2014 | By
> Staff Correspondent
>
> Professor Niyi Osundare has
> just been announced the sole winner of this year's
> prestigious Nigerian National Order of Merit Award.
>
> The lyrical poet, teacher, scholar, public intellectual,
> humanist and citizen of the world hails from Ikere-Ekiti.
>
> Wikipedia states : "Niyi Osundare (born in 1947 in
> Ikere-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria) is a prolific poet,
> dramatist and literary critic. He gained degrees at the
> University of Ibadan (BA), the University of Leeds (MA) and
> York University, Canada (PhD, 1979). Previously professor
> (from 1989) and Head of English (1993–97) at the
> University of Ibadan, he became professor of English at the
> University of New Orleans in 1997. Niyi has a wife, Kemi,
> and three children, two girls and a son who still lives in
> Nigeria. His deaf daughter is the real reason Niyi settled
> in the United States. She could not go to school in Nigeria
> so they found a school in the U.S. for her. They moved with
> her so Niyi and Kemi could be closer to her.
>
> He has always been a vehement champion of the right to free
> speech and is a strong believer in the power of words,
> saying, "to utter is to alter". Osundare is
> renowned for his commitment to socially relevant art and
> artistic activism and has written several open letters to
> the former President of Nigeria (Olusegun Obasanjo), whom
> Osundare has often publicly criticised.
>
> Osundare believes that there is no choice for the African
> poet but to be political."
>
> Publications include:
>
> Songs from the Marketplace (1983)[2]
> Village Voices (1984)
> The Eye of the Earth (1986, winner of a Commonwealth Poetry
> Prize and the poetry prize of the Association of Nigerian
> Authors)
> Moonsongs (1988)
> Songs of the Season (1999)
> Waiting Laughters (1990, winner of the Noma Award)
> Selected Poems (1992)
> Midlife (1993)
> Thread in the Loom: Essays on African Literature and Culture
> (2002)
> The Word is an Egg (2002)
> The State Visit (2002, play)
> Pages from the Book of the Sun: New and Selected Poems
> (2002)
> Early Birds (2004)
> Two Plays (2005)
> The Emerging Perspectives on Niyi Osundare (2003)
> Not My Business (2005)
> Tender Moments:Love Poems (2006)
>
> The Chairman, Governing Board of the Nigerian Merit Award
> (NNMA), Prof. Etim Essien, who disclosed this in Abuja at a
> press conference to announce the recipient of the 2014
> Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) award, Essien said:
> "Prof. Niyi Osundare who through outstanding scholarship,
> researches and service to humanity in the field of
> humanities has successfully carved his name in gold in the
> hearts of people of this nation and many nations of the
> world.
>
> "Osundare, a poet, dramatist and an essayist, has been
> Nigeria's noted nature poet of English language
> expression, and an accessible serious poet who sets out to
> engage the reader, and has made most significant
> contribution to the Nigerian poetic English diction."
>
> The Board Chairman said that President Goodluck Jonathan at
> the Council Chambers, Presidential Villa, would decorate
> Prof. Osundare with the NNOM award on December 4.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
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--
kenneth w. harrow
faculty excellence advocate
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839
harrow@msu.edu

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