Niyi Osundare

Niyi Osundare is a Nigerian poet, dramatist, linguist, and literary critic. Born on 12 March 1947, in Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria, his poetry is influenced by the oral poetry of his Yoruba culture, which he hybridizes with other poetic traditions of the world, including African-American, Latin American, Asian, and European.

Family and education
Osundare gained degrees in English at the University of Ibadan (BA), the University of Leeds (MA), and York University, Canada (PhD, 1979). Previously professor (from 1989) and Head of English (1993–97) at the University of Ibadan, he became professor of English at the University of New Orleans in 1997. Osundare has a wife, Kemi, and three children: two girls and a son who still lives in Nigeria. His deaf daughter is the reason Niyi settled in the United States. She could not go to school in Nigeria so they found a school in the U.S. for her, and moved so as to be closer to her. He has been used in many schools as an example of a poet.

Career
In 1997, he accepted a teaching and research post at the University of New Orleans. In 2005 Osundare was caught in Hurricane Katrina, and he and his wife were stuck in their attic for 26 hours. Their neighbour, who at the time was driving by in his boat, heard their shouts for help. They were rescued and bounced around from rescue shelters until they ended up in Rindge, New Hampshire, where Osundare could get a teaching job as a professor at Franklin Pierce College and things settled down.

Publications

 * Songs from the Marketplace (1983)
 * Village Voices (1984)
 * The Eye of the Earth (1986, winner of a Commonwealth Poetry Prize and the poetry prize of the Association of Nigerian Authors)
 * A Nib in the Pond (1986)
 * Moonsongs (1988)
 * Songs of the Season (1999)
 * Waiting Laughters (1990, winner of the Noma Award)
 * Niyi Osundare: Selected Poems (Heinemann African Poets) (1992)
 * Midlife (1993)
 * Seize the Day (1995)
 * Thread in the Loom: Essays on African Literature and Culture (2002)
 * The Word is an Egg (2002)
 * Pages from the Book of the Sun: New and Selected Poems (2002)
 * The State Visit (2002, play)
 * Early Birds: Poems for Junior Secondary, Book One, Book Two, Book Three (2004)
 * Two Plays (2005)
 * Tender Moments: Love Poems (2006)
 * City Without People: The Katrina Poems (2011)
 * Random Blues (2011)
 * Only If the Road Could Talk (2017)
 * Snapsongs: Homegroans and Foreignflares (2021)
 * Green: Sighs of Our Ailing Planet (2022)- (a sequel to The Eye of the Earth, 1986)

Documentary
In 2016, Osundare, along with his lifelong friend, the Sierra Leonean poet Syl Cheney-Coker, was the subject of a documentary called The Poets, by director Chivas DeVinck. The film follows Osundare and Cheney-Coker on a road-trip through Sierra Leone and Nigeria as they discuss their friendship and how their life experiences have shaped their art.

Relevant literature

 * Ayinuola, Fortress Isaiah, and Onwuka Edwin. "Yoruba eco-proverbs in English: An eco-critical study of Niyi Osundare's midlife and horses of memory." Journal of Literary Society of Nigeria 6 (2014): 29-40.
 * Okunowo, Yomi. "Proverbs as Aesthetics of Meaning in Osundare’s Poetry." The Criterion 3.1:1-21, (2012). Online access