Modern poetry of Northern Nigeria at kano-online.com: discussion and interpretation

Abstract

The article analyzes poetic forum at kano-online.com. This online forum contains valuable data on the recent development of Northern Nigerian poetry in English. Kano-online.com started to publish poetry in 2002. There are more than 390 poetic topics by now. Every topic contains poetic text (or texts) accompanied by readers’ commentaries. This article examines how poets and readers discuss poetry, what are the main forms of their interaction, how readers perceive modern poetry, how both authors and readers interpret poems. This article also aims to analyze the structure of forum and the principles of its functioning. Poetic forum at kano-online.com has a potential to influence creative writing of modern Northern Nigerian poets and to establish interactive dialogue between authors and readers. The forum provides the opportunity for poets to introduce their writing, and to get feedback not only from a wide readership, but also from professional poets and literary critics. It also serves the purpose to increase readers’ awareness of modern Northern Nigerian poetry. Refs 5. Fig. 1.