Poets from Europe, Africa, and North America participated in the World Poetry Day virtual launch of Wreaths for a Wayfarer: An Anthology in Honour of Pius Adesanmi edited by Nduka Otiono and Uche Peter Umezurike.
The event was both commemorative and celebratory of Pius Adesanmi to whom the anthology is dedicated. Participants highlighted his accomplishments as a writer, scholar, and public intellectual.
Adesanmi was a professor of English and Director of the Institute of African Studies at Carleton University before his demise on the 10th of March 2019 aboard the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.
The event, which took place virtually, was facilitated by Nduka Otiono and Ndubuisi Martins, an Ibadan-based poet, and author of the collection of poems Answers Through the Bramble.
The event opened with welcome remarks by Otiono, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Supervisor at the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University.
Also present to witness or participate in the poetry readings and performances, and reflections on mobility and mortality in the time of Coronavirus, were Professor Toyin Falola, the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin; Professor Chinedum Babalola, Vice-Chancellor of Chrisland University, Nigeria; Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, scholar and multiple award-winning writer; Jane Bryce, Professor Emerita of African Literature and Cinema at the University of the West Indies, Barbados; Akua Lezli Hope author of Embouchure and recipient of US National Endowment of the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships for Poetry; and other distinguished scholars, established and emerging poets.
The World Poetry Day virtual launch of Wreaths for a Wayfarer event was sponsored by Carleton University’s Institute of African Studies, Chrisland University, Lunaris, Digirature, and Ngiga Books and Club.
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