Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Orginal Publication Date
1985
Journal Title
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Volume
5
Issue
ess/vol5/iss1
First Page
18
Last Page
20
Abstract
When Angus Calder, Jack Mapanje, and Cosmo Pieterse sat as judges for the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award of 1981, they were faced with some 3,000 entries from more than 700 contestants from which they were to award three cash prizes and a number of book prizes. In the introduction to the book which they subsequently edited, consisting of eighty-two poems from forty-five writers from thirteen countries in Africa, they explain that they had told all entrants they were looking for "originality and imagination as well as evidence of technical skill." They state, also, that they "strove to deliberate dispassionately ... without regard to geographical origin or to the author's previous reputations." They conclude that the book "represents the remarkable vitality of verse in English all over the continent," and leave their choices of poems "to speak for themselves, as they do so well."
Rights
Copyright, ©EES, The National Association for Ethnic Studies, 1985