Barth Akpah Serves A Sumptuous Feast of Poetry at LRF’s July Book Reading

Memories of the July edition of the Monthly Book Reading by the Literary Renaissance Foundation (LRF) will linger for a long time in the minds of the participants at the event who were left enthralled by the literary fiesta on display.

The meeting started at 5 pm with a short introduction about the foundation by the Executive Director, Babatunde Oladele, who also moderated the meeting, while Mary Ogundipe, the Foundation’s Administrator read the brief biography of the reader of the day, Dr Barth Akpah.

Bartholomew Chizoba Akpah PhD is the Chair, Department of Language and Literature, William V. S Tubman University, Liberia. He is a poet-cum-scholar, a fellow of Ife Institute of Advanced Studies and author of Land of Tales published by Kraft in 2019.

He is currently working on his second poetry collection which is expected to be published in August 2022.  His first collection, Land of Tales, is on the reading list of several academic institutions in Nigeria. He is also one of the awardees of the Library of Africa and the Diaspora West African Writers Residency (2022), Accra, Ghana.

Dr Barth acknowledged the influence of his wife who was also present at the reading and then proceeded to read some poetry from his collection. The collection of poems is divided into four sections, namely:

• Anthems of Dreams
• Anthems of Fame
• Anthems of State
• Anthems of the Heart

Dr Barth captivated the audience while reading from each section with rich allusion to contemporary happenings in society. The poems he read include:

• Caprice
• Truth
• Reflections 1
• Man and Fame
• Bachelors’ Tale
• To what end
• Fix
• Words and Opposites
• Songs of Gadafi
• I need a word
• Letter to Mama
• Heart beats
• Emeka’s chase
• Silent Night

Participants were allowed to ask questions and express their views after each section of the reading. The meeting ended at 6:28 pm with the Executive Director thanking everyone who attended the reading whilst inviting them to also make it a date next month on 7 August 2022.