Oral and Written African Poetry and Poetics, the 42nd volume of African Literature Today (ALT 42), is, in summary, an ode to the poet as griot and medium. Ernest Emenyonu compiles a collection of scholarly and literary tributes that reaffirm the poet’s centrality in representing African experiences in the contemporary era. In Emenyonu’s editorial chapter and introduction, he makes it clear that the intention of this volume of African Literature Today is to foreground “continuities in the practice of the art of poetry in the continent” (3). This impressive volume, comprising scholarly articles, interviews, tributes, poems, short stories, and reviews, manages to assert such continuities that affix the role of the poet as a figure that mirrors burning social and political questions across African nation-spaces. Major themes explored include, but are not limited to, the centrality of African-Indigenous spiritual practices and ways of knowing, orality, and contemporary African poetry, as well as poetry as a militant art form.

Following the griot line of enquiry, contributors address themes of African and Afrocentric spiritualities, widely discussing how poets, as artists, mediate between the organic and inorganic worlds. This is explored adeptly in Ogaga Okuyade and Edafe Mukoro’s essays on pandemic poetry (21), Iquo DianaAbasi’s reflections on water, movement, and Yoruba cosmology (50), as well as Adetayo Alabi’s writing on Oríkì Praise Poetry, for instance (75). These works address the position of the poet as a mediator, who translates in true griot form the incommunicable, whether it be between the human and spirit worlds or in the molecular. In this way, ALT 42 succeeds in restating the place of poetry and, indeed, the poet as a soothsayer of sorts, who illuminates the extraphysical and ancestral bonds that tie African and Afro-diasporic communities.

Further to the point of the poet as a griot-mediator, ALT 42 situates poetry as derivative and reproductive of a metamorphosing oral tradition. Across the thematically varied contributions in this volume, it was refreshing to engage with explorations of the poetic form that reimagined the contemporary relevance of African oral traditions. For instance, Milena Vladić Jovanov’s discussion of the body of work of T.S. Eliot and Kofi Anyidoho (59), Paramitha Routh Roy’s exploration of Spoken Word Poetry and the African Oral Tradition (106), and Mawuli Adjei’s review of Kofi Anyidoho’s SeedTIME (211) do not rely on static descriptions of African oral traditions. Instead, there is an emphasis on the evolving nature of orality that allowed oral and aural practices to remain relevant to African lived realities. These reflections explore the roles of memory, cultural inheritance, technology, and media in shaping oral practices within poetic expression. Again, an unsurprising intervention, considering Ernest Emenyonu’s editorial intention to highlight the aforementioned continuities in African poetic traditions.

On the throughlines of continuities, ALT 42 not only explores the endurance of orality and oral traditions within African poetic expressions, but also emphasizes the importance of legacy, veneration, and honorific practices. Odes to African literary and poetic stalwarts Kofi Anyidoho, Kamau Brathwaite and Ama Ata Aidoo symbolize acts of acknowledgement of heritage. To speak to heritage in this volume is not simply an empty or passive gesture but a reactivation of an understanding that contemporary African literature and poetry rests on the shoulders of giants. This is a reminder that the poetic form in the African context mirrors the griot custom and tradition, and as such, it cannot be divorced from custodianship. As a custodian himself, Kofi Anydioho is unequivocal on tracing lineages within his poetic practice in his interview with the ALT Team (118). He reinforces an artistic grounding in family, lineage, and tradition through a guiding theoretical framework, “The Fertilizer Theory of Knowledge Production.” In tracing inheritance, Anyidoho and this volume at large insist on expressions of humility that anchor the poet in ancestrality.

In the context of militancy, multiple contributions to this volume have depicted a charged and insurgent poetic voice without sacrificing aesthetic quality. Oluwafumilayo Akinpelu’s reflections on instapoetry and activism (21), Adewuyi Aremu Ayodeji’s interview with Kehinde Akano (139), Kofi Anyidoho’s tribute to South African radical poet and Black Arts Movement veteran Willie Keorapetse Kgositsile (162), and Ademola Adesola’s poem on Freedom (165) serve as reminders that poetry as an art form should still be regarded as a weapon. These contributions speak to what I continue to observe as the griot tendencies of the poet, which this volume elicits. Again, the issue emphasizes the capacity of creative media to not only provide critical commentary on the sociopolitical state of affairs, but also to simultaneously challenge them.

Finally, beyond highlighting poets as mediators, a theme that comes through prominently is an appreciation of poetics as a methodology and orientation. Moving beyond words and the pure poetic form, contributors highlight the importance of transcending reactionary discourses on essentialism, or rather, counter-essentialism. I find that this resolve, which insists on connectivity, communality, and a collective dialogue, makes ALT 42 a refreshing take on African literary and poetic form.