Unbound: An Anthology of New Nigerian Poets Under 40

The generational debate in Nigerian poetry has been shaped by the interventions of such anthologies as Voices from the Fringes (1988), edited by Harry Garuba, Poets in their Youth (1988), edited Uche Nduka and Ositadinma Ike, Gems Out of Africa: A Wake Anthology of 100 Nigerian Poets (1998), edited by Eddie Ayo-Ojo, Obafemi Obadare and Mac Amarere, and Camouflage: Best of Contemporary Nigerian Writing (2006) edited by Nduka Otiono and Odoh Diego Okenyodo. Unbound is such an agenda-setting anthology. But more importantly, it is the first anthology to zoom into the works of the emerging generation of Nigerian poets born in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century. The anthology showcases some of the most brilliant as well as struggling members of the new generation of Nigerian poets under the age of forty, most of whom launched their writing careers on social media. Read in a chain, the poems sound like the everyday voices around us; the maturing teenager who discovers another shape to love; the father's empathic response to the son's youthful inquisitions; voices from wars-riots-and-protests-torn places; people expressing joy and grief and angst and fortitude. The common theme is iridescence, as all the poems, like prisms, break the human race into its myriad colours, shifting in quick succession Consequently, the poems in this collection have been organized in eight parts to reflect both the collective and individual visions and subthemes.