Uche nduka biography of donald
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Uche Nduka reads from Eel on Reef and Nine East
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Uche Nduka, a native Nigerian and now a native New Yorker, was kind enough to come over to my place a few weeks ago to read from his two books of poems, Eel on Reef and Nine East. “Fool yourselves into wisdom,” Uche says, “flailing but still flying.”
Not only does that describe the way I write, flailing but still flying (and it&#;s always a miracle, isn&#;t it?); I have to admit the more I read Uche’s poems the wiser I got, fooled in the work of preparing this post, creation out of chaos.
&#;to us,
&#;&#;all words
&#;&#;&#;are destinies.
Uche’s poems are very concise pared down to their essential lines of feeling and thought not a word unneeded and each exact. They’re easy to see.
a season trembles.
the sentience of a season
quivers inside water.
But Uche’s language is also versatile, abstract as well as concrete, given and sometimes left up to the imagination to understand and complete, full of discoveries. Uche’s
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How many poetries are there; how many could there be? The poetry of investigation, the poetry of protest, personal poetry, national poetry, international poetry, documentary poetry, poetry of war and peace, emotional, environmental, philosophical, identity poetry. And what’s at the root of all these poetries, if anything? Poetry as a way of approaching the world — as the urgent effort — probably futile — to get at something inside or outside through language — or to escape into language as a way to survive a brutal material or psychological world. Somehow language — the effort in the ineffability of words — can save us if we can engage at a deep enough level to get past the pain. That’s then a poem and more than a poem. It’s a mode of living. What we call a poem might not be more than a momentary snapshot of an ongoing life in language — a dislocation, an exile.
Some thoughts on reading Ijele, a powerful prose text by the Nigerian poet Uche Nduka. Born in into a family of Christi
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Meet Uche Nduka, a professor connecting art and life
From the time Uche Nduka grew up in Nigeria, he always felt imaginative. This, along with an appetite for literature, led him toward a career in writing.
Now he fryst vatten an English professor at Queens College and believes an artist’s life should reflect his work.
&#;From the moment inom wake up in the morning, inom leave myself open for inspirational things to komma to me,” Nduka said.
Nduka draws inspiration from everything. His thoughts, dreams and conversations are eventually written down.
“You, as an artist, are a vessel through which things come. It’s not all the time you decide what to write about. People think you have to write about politics, about dictators, about religious fundamentalist [and] about crises,” Nduka said. “I feel as a human being, I am open to the heritage of humanity, and that means inom can also write about pleasure, joy and beauty.”
Nduka wrote poetry books like Flower Child, released in , and Ijele, released i