Topic: Beyond Aesthetics: What Does African Society Expect from Its Poets?
Date: Saturday, 26 September 2026
Time: 4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Venue: Google Meet
OVERVIEW
The Panel Discussion featured six renowned poets whose works were longlisted or shortlisted for the 2026 NLNG Prize for Literature. The discussion explored the place of poetry in African society and the expectations placed on poets beyond the aesthetic value of their work. The session was well attended. Participants included young and established writers, including Professor Akachi Ezeigbo and Professor Maria Ajima.
PANELISTS
THERESA LOLA is an award-winning poet, writer and artist. Her collection, Ceremony for the Nameless, won the 2025 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. She is a former Young People’s Laureate for London and winner of the 2018 Brunel International African Poetry Prize. Ceremony for the Nameless was longlisted for the 2026 NLNG Prize for Literature.
JAMES EZE is an award-winning poet, journalist, cultural organiser and communications strategist. His debut collection, Dispossessed, won the 2020 ANA Poetry Prize. He founded Udala Nation and has curated major literary events. His collection, _Unbind Me Now_, is shortlisted for the 2026 NLNG Prize for Literature.
RASAQ MALIK GBOLAHAN is a poet, performer, translator, essayist and emerging Digital Humanities scholar. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Agbowó, and co-founded Àtélẹwó, a journal dedicated to Yoruba-language literature. His collection, The Origin of Wounds, was longlisted for the 2026 NLNG Prize for Literature.
OGAGA IFOWODO is a lawyer, poet and scholar whose works include Homeland & Other Poems, Madiba and The Oil Lamp. He is also the author of History, Trauma, and Healing in Postcolonial Narratives and a Fellow of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His collection, Why Does God Need a Gun? is shortlisted for the 2026 NLNG Prize for Literature.
SADDIQ DZUKOGI is a poet and Assistant Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His collection, Your Crib, My Qibla, won the 2021 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and the 2022 Julie Suk Award. His latest collection, Bakandamiya, was longlisted for the 2026 NLNG Prize for Literature.
MODERATOR
ABDUR RAHMAN ADEBAYO ADERINOYE is a poet, communication expert. He served twice as Chairman of the ANA Kwara Chapter and as National Assistant General Secretary of ANA from 2023 to 2025. He is also a distinguished fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations and the Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators.
The session was convened by Sumaila Isah Umaisha, Founder and Coordinator of Authors’ Hub.
The moderator formally opened the session by welcoming the panelists and participants and introducing the topic of discussion. He proceeded to introduce the distinguished panelists, acknowledging their contributions to poetry and literary discourse, as well as their recognition in the 2026 NLNG Prize for Literature.
DISCUSSION
THERESA LOLA, responding to the moderator’s question on whether a poet is obligated to be concerned about happenings in society, said the poet’s first obligation is to reflect humanity and ensure that the work has heart, rather than being merely technical or flamboyant.
She argued that poets cannot completely separate their works from the realities around them, particularly when questions of identity, oppression or belonging are involved. At the same time, she believes poets should have the freedom to decide how those realities enter their work.
Lola noted that the responsibility of the African poet has evolved, pointing to the use of oral traditions and folklore by first-generation Nigerian poets and the greater accessibility sought by later generations. For her, poets have a responsibility to preserve identity and connect with their communities, but that does not mean every poet must write about the same issues. “If we all had the responsibility to write about the same thing, then our work would be homogenous.”
She cited the Harlem Renaissance, where writers captured both the struggles and joys of African-American life, as an example of different ways poetry can document a period.
When asked how poets should intervene in times of crisis, Lola acknowledged the particular expectations placed on African writers. She said she would, however, like to see a situation where an African poet could write about subjects such as space or flowers and still be recognised without being expected to produce explicitly political work.
She believes everyone has a responsibility to speak up during a crisis, but how a poet chooses to do so is an individual decision. “Silence itself can be activism,” she said, explaining that withdrawing one’s work from an oppressive platform or refusing to participate in a particular event can also constitute a form of speaking up.
“The ultimate goal of poetry is to transform our way of thinking and transform our way of seeing things.” For Lola, speaking up in a crisis can take many forms.
SADDIQ DZUKOGI responded to the moderator’s question about whether the African poet is simply an artist whose primary responsibility is to create, or whether society expects something beyond the work itself: “I’m a poet, and my responsibility is to write poems.”
He said conversations around Nigerian literature often come with questions about whether poets should serve as moral compasses or be responsible for changing society. “That’s not my responsibility. It’s not even my responsibility to change the world, because that’s such hogwash.” A poem, he argued, cannot raise a dead child or feed a hungry person. For him, poets should resist the burden of expectations about what they ought to say, which causes they should support or what role they should play in society.
Dzukogi believes what poets have done for centuries is pay close attention to human experience: watching people fall in love and fall apart, celebrating beauty, mourning loss, questioning power, contemplating death, laughing at human absurdity and trying to make sense of the world they inhabit.
Poetry, he said, allows imagination to wander while preserving the experiences a poet has witnessed, whether in the familiar home or the larger communal home.
He also rejected the idea that poets must become spokespersons or leaders. “We have elected leaders for that.” A poet does not necessarily have to provide answers or solutions to societal problems. The poet can ask questions, point people towards the right questions and create room for contemplation.
For Dzukogi, there is no need to elevate poetry into something it is not. His concern is to preserve experience and memory. “I want my stories to endure. I want the story of my people to endure.” Rather than claiming to be “the voice for the voiceless,” he would rather be a voice that directs attention to people who are already speaking but have been refused a hearing.
JAMES EZE’s response to the moderator’s question about whether African society expects the poet to become the “voice of the voiceless” was also direct: “Each poet must determine what his wants to do with his art.
Then he pointed to Nigeria’s literary history, where writers and poets have often placed their work at the forefront of struggles for a better society. He cited Christopher Okigbo, whom he described as his “patron saint”, noting that Okigbo abandoned the pen during the Nigerian Civil War, took up a gun and died fighting for a cause he believed in.
He also referenced Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People, which he said proved prophetic in relation to Nigeria’s first military coup, and Things Fall Apart, which Achebe wrote in response to the representations of Africa in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson.
Eze explained that his own decision to engage the Nigerian condition is reflected in his collection Unbind Me Now, particularly in the poem ‘Voice of the Streets’. He said the poem raises consciousness about the Nigerian and human condition, a decision he made without being asked to do so. For him, poets and writers have “a moral obligation to respond to their time and to the demands of their times.”
He maintained that the responsibility does not come from society appointing someone as a poet. Rather, the poet evolves independently and must decide how to respond to issues that matter deeply to them.
He believes poets should serve as “intensive witnesses” to the human condition around them, preserve the language and historical heritage of their people, and hold a mirror to society so that it can understand itself better.
Eze also connected this responsibility to the role of artists during periods of national crisis. Referring to public criticism of Nigerian musicians who remained silent during periods of terrorism and worsening insecurity, he argued that artists with platforms have a responsibility to use their voices when the country is in distress. “We have only one country,” he said, explaining that the consequences of Nigeria’s decline affect him, his children and everyone else within the country.
He noted that not every writer experiences Nigeria in the same way. Some people, he said, are insulated from the shocks and difficulties that others contend with daily, and writers ultimately write from their beliefs and understanding of their surroundings. The question, therefore, is whether a writer believes the country is in a situation that requires people to witness, document and preserve the experience for both the present and the future.
Eze said there was nothing wrong with writing about flowers, sunsets or other beautiful things, but argued that, for him, the immediate realities of survival and the human condition demand attention. “I would not busy myself writing about sunset when a school teacher has his head hacked off some months ago,” he said, explaining that he would consider it a failure of his art to remain silent about such realities when he has the gift of expression.
At the same time, he acknowledged that every writer has the freedom to decide what to do with their artistic gifts. Writers who live in different circumstances may choose to write about beauty, nature or love, and such poetry also has a place because society cannot be political all the time. “We also need things that bring sobriety to our existence. We need such poems.”
He concluded by acknowledging that the universe offers many possibilities for artistic expression, but said that if he were advising a young writer confronted by the realities of contemporary Nigeria, he would encourage them to pause and “contemplate Nigeria and ask some hard-headed questions,” because “no one else would do that for us but us.”
OGAGA IFOWODO spoke on whether the contemporary African poet still carries the historical responsibility of being a witness, critic or opponent of political power. He argued that the writer’s role as a chronicler of history remains, not as reportage, but through the reimagining and re-narration of lived experience as literature.
He said the writer’s role as witness or social critic depends on how truthfully they capture life as it is lived and how effectively readers recognise aspects of themselves in the work. Because power can corrupt or destroy values such as freedom, dignity, equality, empathy, solidarity, art and culture, affirming these values can itself become an act of truth-telling and resistance to power.
He described another dimension of the writer’s responsibility as being “a voice of reason”, holding up a mirror through which society can see itself, “warts and all.” This role remains relevant, he said, because African societies continue to grapple with inequality, corruption, slavery and colonialism, as well as contemporary challenges such as climate change and environmental destruction.
At the same time, Ifowodo partly agreed with Saddiq Dzukogi that the conversation about the poet’s relevance to society may be somewhat dated. He noted that similar debates were prominent during the anti-colonial and decolonisation struggles, particularly around language, audience and who the African writer was writing for. For him, relevance is already inherent in writing because writing requires language, and language requires shared meanings and an audience. Once a work enters the public space, its relevance is ultimately determined by how individual readers engage with it.
He stressed that relevance should not be measured only by whether a writer explicitly denounces corruption, dishonesty or oppressive laws. Artistic quality matters because, as he put it, “if the art fails, the message is lost.” Drawing on Chinua Achebe’s observations about the importance of language and conversation in Igbo culture, he argued that the richness and effectiveness of language are central to literary communication.
Ifowodo also maintained that writing about human experiences does not have to be restricted to specifically African political issues. War, corruption, love, nature and loss are part of the human condition, making it possible for a work rooted in a particular environment to achieve universal relevance. “It is in being local that you can be universal,” he said.
Using Pablo Neruda as an example, he noted that “Ode to the Tomato” can be as relevant as Neruda’s explicitly political poems, demonstrating that poets can engage political realities while also writing about ordinary and beautiful aspects of life. He similarly questioned why society does not place the same expectations on painters, arguing that paintings of rivers, mountains or the sky are also engagements with the human environment.
His conclusion was that poets should write what their poetic impulse leads them to write. Society should not dictate what relevance must look like. As long as the work engages human experience and can be understood and engaged by others, its relevance ultimately depends on the individual reader.
On poetry, trauma and healing, he said writers can help society confront trauma by remaining faithful to reality and allowing imagination to transform what they observe into literature. By giving traumatic experiences a language and a space to be acknowledged and discussed, poetry, fiction and other literary forms can contribute to the process of understanding and working through collective wounds.
RASAQ MALIK GBOLAHAN responded to the question of what possibilities could emerge when African poetry moves beyond the dominant English-language literary space, describing the possibilities as “groundbreaking.” He reflected on _Àtẹ́lẹwọ́_, the digital literary journal he co-founded to provide a platform for emerging and established writers writing in Yoruba.
He noted that the journal currently offers a rare space for Yoruba literary writing in Nigeria and stressed the need for more platforms for writers working in indigenous languages.
For Gbolahan, creating such platforms is also a decolonial effort. He argued that indigenous-language platforms are crucial to the survival of African languages and to helping younger generations learn and engage with them. In the digital age, he said, literary works in indigenous languages should be deliberately preserved online, both to document literary traditions and to create an archive for future generations.
Addressing whether poetry can change society or whether the power attributed to literature is sometimes exaggerated, Gbolahan said poetry has the potential to create change, but that change should not be limited to political transformation. He questioned the tendency to view poetry primarily as a tool for political change, noting that many political leaders do not read poetry or consider it significant. Instead, he encouraged a broader understanding of what poetry can do, including its use as a spiritual tool, a form of prayer, a means of processing depression and even an antidote to suicide.
Speaking from personal experience, he said, “As a writer, I find solace in poetry,” describing poetry as a place where he can contain and express his emotions, particularly during difficult moments.
Gbolahan also described the poet as a witness to society, with the responsibility of documenting what happens around them and preserving the experiences of the people. He cited poets including Niyi Osundare, Remi Raji, Olu Oguibe, Afam Akeh, Ogaga Ifowodo, Jumoke Verissimo and Akeem Lasisi as examples of writers who have witnessed and captured societal issues through their poetry.
DEBATE ON POETRY, READERSHIP AND SOCIAL IMPACT
B.M. DZUKOGI introduced another dimension to the discussion, questioning who contemporary poets are actually speaking to when poetry books are not reaching the wider society. Reflecting on his own experience after publishing his first two books in 1996 and 1997, he said he realised he was “actually not talking to anybody.” He argued that poetry has become the least-read literary genre and that many Nigerians do not have access to contemporary poetry. This, he said, influenced his decision to focus more on essays, stories and quotations, where he felt he could reach people more effectively.
SADDIQ DZUKOGI challenged this view, arguing that it measures readership mainly through physical books. He pointed to online journals and digital platforms where poetry is increasingly read and discussed, particularly among younger writers. He noted that poets are constantly reading and responding to one another, creating literary conversations that may not be captured by traditional measures of readership.
“There has never been a time like right now,” he said, referring to the volume of poetry being written and the engagement taking place online.
B.M. DZUKOGI clarified that his concern was not that nobody reads poetry, but that the readership largely consists of poets, writers and people already within literary circles. His question was whether poetry was reaching the wider society beyond that community.
OGAGA IFOWODO responded that a writer’s impact cannot be measured directly by the number of people who read their work. He noted that even widely recognised writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie are read by only a fraction of Nigeria’s population, yet their influence extends through schools, criticism, newspapers and other cultural conversations.
“The writer is first of all an artist,” Ifowodo said, arguing that art has value beyond the size of its immediate audience. He referenced works such as Death and the King’s Horseman, The Iliad and The Odyssey as examples of works that continue to matter because of their artistic value.
He added, however, that writers seeking more direct social or political engagement may need to explore other avenues beyond poetry, such as community theatre and public movements.
“We as human beings are multi-dimensional. We are complex. Our interests vary,” he said, stressing that no single medium can produce every form of change.
THERESA LOLA supported Ifowodo’s point and called for better systems to track reading and literary engagement in Nigeria, including book sales, reader demographics and reading habits. She also highlighted the role of infrastructure in connecting writers with the wider public.
Drawing from her own experience of encountering poetry through a school trip to a poetry festival, Lola suggested greater use of schools, youth competitions and similar programmes to introduce young people to poetry. She noted that writers cannot be expected to engage society effectively when the structures for facilitating that engagement remain limited.
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM PARTICIPANTS
DR AWELE ILUSANMI, FANA, reflected on her experience as a poet, noting that she has been writing since 2004 and continues to evolve. For her, the poet occupies many spaces in society and can serve as a healer, a voice for the people and an agent of positive change. She believes the poet’s responsibility is ultimately to help move the nation forward, using words, voice and life to make a difference.
“Every message matters,” she said, stressing that poets should continually ask whether their work is contributing to positive change.
She also emphasised the importance of emotional connection; the reader should feel something deeply about a poem and want to return to it. For her, the enduring power of poetry lies in its ability to touch people while contributing, in whatever way possible, to the progress of society. She noted that this responsibility cuts across languages, whether Yoruba, Hausa or Igbo.
DR. ZAYNAB ANGO challenged the idea that the question of the writer’s responsibility to society is a debate whose time has passed. She argued that it has remained relevant for generations and is unlikely to end, particularly because society continues to have a stake in what writers produce.
She observed that contemporary writers are increasingly individualistic, focusing on personal and human concerns rather than broader social, political and cultural issues.
Drawing from her experience as a teacher, she noted that students appear increasingly disconnected from poetry, partly because much contemporary poetry does not seem to resonate with the realities they face. She said this creates a growing gap between poets and their readers.
She argued that writers, particularly those who enjoy public recognition, should remain conscious of their responsibility to the society that claims them. While poets are not necessarily activists, she noted that many poets of the past engaged social issues through their writing.
Citing Wole Soyinka’s ‘Telephone Conversation’, she said works that speak directly to lived experiences can continue to help readers understand difficult realities.
She concluded that writers who matter most are those whose works speak to the experiences of their people, adding that she sees this quality in the poets participating in the discussion.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the moderator asked the panelists how they see the future of African poetry.
SADDIQ DZUKOGI said he believes the future of African poetry is secure, pointing to the fact that conversations about its role and direction are still actively taking place. He cautioned against prescribing what writers must write about, stressing that the individual experience can itself be political.
For him, a poet’s responsibility is primarily to language and the advancement of language, not to a prescribed subject matter. He noted that if society wants activism, protest or political reportage, there are already platforms and avenues for those forms of engagement.
“We shouldn’t say writer must be political because that doesn’t exist anywhere else except in Nigeria.”
OGAGA IFOWODO reinforced the argument that poets should not be confined to particular subjects. He pointed to poets such as Odia Ofeimun and others whose works include both socially engaged and seemingly personal or less political poems. “We can work and chew gum at the same time,” he reiterated.
On the future of African poetry, he pointed to the sheer number of entries for the NLNG Prize, particularly in years when poetry is the competing genre, as evidence that people continue to write and read poetry. For him, poetry remains in good shape.
JAMES EZE acknowledged that nobody should prescribe what another person must write, but maintained that writers can still offer advice about what they believe young writers should pay attention to.
He acknowledged that he has written love and pastoral poems and that his writing sometimes comes alive more strongly outside political subjects. However, if asked what a Nigerian writer should take seriously at this moment, his answer remains clear: “Talk to Nigerians about Nigeria.”
On the future of African poetry, Eze expressed optimism, pointing to the NLNG Prize, literary festivals and other literary activities that have helped popularise poetry. He also highlighted the growing interest of young people in performance and spoken-word poetry, which he believes holds promise for the arts in Nigeria and across Africa.
THERESA LOLA said the rapid pace of technological change makes the future difficult to predict, but identified several trends she expects to see. She pointed to more poetry engaging with the lineage of Nigerian poetry, increased digital accessibility, and greater sustainability in publishing.
She also anticipated more multimedia and cross-genre collaborations, particularly between poetry, theatre, visual art and music. For her, these developments could expand the ways poetry is created, accessed and discussed.
RASAQ MALIK GBOLAHAN returned to the issue of infrastructure, stressing the importance of building stronger literary platforms at home. He noted that Nigerian writers often publish in literary journals abroad, while the country still has relatively few platforms, grants and fellowships to support writers locally. For him, the future of African poetry is bright, but sustaining that future requires deliberate investment in the platforms and structures that allow writers to create, publish and thrive.
The session ended with a shared recognition of the continuing vitality of African poetry and the need to create stronger structures for its growth, accessibility and preservation.
* Celina Chinwemmeri Ikechukwu, the Authors’ Hub rapporteur, is a student and an award-winning writer
