Dr Charles Akinsete Evokes Powerful Imagery at LRF March Book Reading

The March LRF Book Reading started at 5:15 pm on Sunday, 3rd March 2024 via Zoom with the MC for the day, Mrs Olabisi Olasupo, welcoming all present.

The Director of The Literary Renaissance Foundation, Mr Babatunde Oladele, then gave a brief insight into LRF, its activities and all it entails, and what participants were to expect.

Afterwards, he passed the baton to Mr Seun Olaniyi, a member of the Board of Trustees at LRF, who also briefly shared with the audience what the organisation stands for and further encouraged the audience to cultivate the habits of reading.

According to Mr Olaniyi, the LRF was founded both to bring back people who had a love for literary works and are no longer functioning in that space and to expose those who aren’t used to reading to a culture of reading and get them to appreciate it. By doing these, the organisation can ensure that the reading culture is brought back to the Nigerian community and perhaps sub-Saharan Africa.

The author of the day was Dr Charles Akinsete, a lecturer at the Department of English, University of Ibadan, where he teaches African Literature, Literature of the Black Diaspora, English poetry, and Creative Writing.

A First Class graduate who won prizes for Best Graduating Student at the Department of English and the Faculty of Arts, U.I. in 2005, he was the recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Travel Award, Humboldt University, Germany in 2015, and also won the African Humanities Program (AHP) Fellowship, an initiative of the American Council of Learned Society (ACLS) in 2018.

He has written two poetry collections, entitled Do Not Preach to Me, and Dance of the Savage Kingdom, which was shortlisted for the 2023 ANA prize for Poetry.

Dr Charles appreciated the organisers and commended the Literary Renaissance Foundation Community, for the great opportunity. He also expressed his gratitude to colleagues and students present at the program.

He began the reading from his collection of poetry titled “Dance of a Savage Kingdom.” He picked out 11 poems from the book and divided them into 3 sections.

He delved into the first poem, “We Become an Empty Dance.”

He read other poems which include:

• We Become Empty Dance
• Death Comes in Small Packages
• Of Kingdom and Unrighteousness.
• Ode to Nigerian Youths and many more.

After much expression from participants, he gave room for responses, comments, critiques, observations, and recommendations.

Many commended him for his works and how his choice of words and insights from the poem relate to happenings around youth, government, and personal life.

The LRF’s administrator, Mary Ogundipe, announced that the next LRF Book Reading date is scheduled for the 7th of April 2024, while the Reading Culture Dialogue will be coming up on the 6^th of April.