He also has a one-line poem in which the title of the poem, “Because I Was Thinking of You,” is longer than the poem itself: “I left a stone in a pond.” Overall, in highly metaphorical language, disciplined form, and musical repetitions and refrains, Okoro writes poetry that doesn’t restrain itself to merely interesting reading but keeps our intellect awake with the realities of present-day Africa and its diaspora. Here and there he experiments, as in his tributes to Kofi Awoonor, where he has the halo tradition of the Anlo Ewe of Ghana and Togo in mind. In a section filled with structural repetition, there are memorable lines such as “We built our home in each other’s joy” and “Between us a coast survives.” In “Earth, Oil, and Water Fever,” on the Niger Delta environment, the poet says, “Tomorrow’s tears are today’s fears.” In this environmentally conscious poem, the poet exposes the harm that oil companies are doing to the local communities.ĭike Okoro’s In the Company of the Muse helps revitalize the exhausted African poetic scene. Among those losses are Thomas Sankara, the Burkinabe pan-Africanist leader who was assassinated in a coup Kofi Awoonor who died in the Al-Shabaab massacre in Nairobi, Kenya and Caribbean authors Edwidge Danticat and Kamau Braithwaite. “General Hospital” satirizes the hopelessness of health facilities in Nigeria, and there is a refrain-like line of “general hospital.” The third section involves nature, tributes, and losses. In the second section the poet also pays tribute to, among others, Miriam Makeba for her voice and Nelson Mandela for his inimitable smile. ![]() I have not come / to weep and sob over your past injustices.” The section ends with “Robben Island” in these beautiful lines: “Let the drums beat. ![]() The poet recalls also his trip to South Africa with tributes to Mazisi Kunene, the great South African poet, and Nelson Mandela, whose epic struggle liberated black South Africans from apartheid. Among those the poet remembers are Ken Saro-Wiwa for his fearlessness despite the “nozzle of the gun,” Obi Wali who was brutally killed, and a three-year old who died from being burned. The first section almost uniformly deals with nostalgic experiences and remembrances of things past, including deceased people the poet admired. The collection is divided into three untitled sections. ![]() 88 pages.ĭike Okoro’s recent collection of poems, In the Company of the Muse, is a work of substance in which the poet deploys versatile techniques to express his experiences in a controlled form. They followed this up with their latest single, “Mister Impossible,” just in time for their summer North American tour and leading into more new music out this fall.Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Three was completed in the wake of Barthel’s sister’s passing due to suicide, a shattering event which brought suicide prevention awareness to the forefront of the band’s consciousness and has informed their charitable giving and community outreach ever since, thus their decision to donate a portion of ticket sales to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.Īfter three years of touring around the world and writing and recording new music, Phantogram returned earlier this summer with their comeback anthem “Into Happiness,” which Billboard hailed as “one of their poppiest tunes so far, a ghostly celebration of joy's triumph over depression.” The song and Floria Sigismondi-directed video also received praise from Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, COMPLEX, HYPEBEAST, Paste Magazine, PAPER Magazine and many more. The album was also met with critical acclaim from Pitchfork, Billboard, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, People, Vogue, New York Magazine, The FADER, Stereogum, NYLON, PAPER and many others. Their 2016 third full-length, Three, reached career-high positions on the Billboard Top 200 chart (#9) and Billboard Top Albums Sales chart (#5), as the lead single “You Don’t Get Me High Anymore” climbed the alternative radio charts. Since the arrival of 2010’s Barsuk Records debut release Eyelid Movies, the pair has amassed nearly half-a-billion streams, achieved two Gold-Certified singles in the form of “Fall In Love” and “When I’m Small,” headlined sold out shows worldwide, become a festival staple, and toured with artists including The xx, Muse, M83, Alt-J and more. Phantogram – the New York duo of Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel- has continued to change the zeitgeist for almost a decade by consistently challenging it with their signature blend of hard-hitting beats, guitar-driven dark psychedelia, and electronic pop.
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