Publisher: Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon
Konglanjo
This collection of poems evolves as a network and satellite of an expressive pursuit of justice with a difference. For, though this poetry simultaneously shapes global and grassroots smiles and tears, its corpus is no matter for laughter or weeping. In familiar but not identical voices, the poet tackles social evils as parasites while cross-examining cultural assumptions in the same vein. Triple form -title poem, Letters to Ethiopia and Some Random poems, explores nightmares of colonial mission civilisatrice by dint of two decades of inspirational events from 1965 as invitations into a more serene world emerging from post-discoveries.
£25.00
About the author
Bongasu Tanla Kishani was born at Kïtiïùwuàm in Nso’, Cameroon. A leading Cameroonian poet and teacher by profession, he is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Yawunde 1, Cameroon. In 1990 the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) short-listed and awarded the first position to his published collection of poems, Konglanjo (Spears of Love without Ill-fortune) (1988). Besides publishing in several National and International Journals and Reviews like ABBIA (Cameroon), Preàsence Africaine (Paris), Loquitur (Rome), Bongasu Tanla Kishani has also published another enriching collection of his poems, entitled Kpuà e Goè’ e Njeèm (1998) in literate Laâm Nso’.
Review
‘‘The title poem relates to most important poetry of all ages: it reveals how, in the search for right images, metaphors and most apposite expressions, we often find ourselves listening to the voice that ‘bids us return to our own sources.’ Since the poet has discovered the right idioms, he has, throughout the poem, undergone the process of depersonalization, has indeed obtained objectivity: little of himself is felt in the poem. He obtains this effect by the use of the appropriate voice – that of the priest at the ceremony.”
Professor Siga Asanga, ABBIA, Cameroon Cultural Review