Wole Soyinka, Poems from Prison

Craig McLuckie (Okanagan College)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 8.2.3: Anglophone African Writing and Culture: Subsaharan.
Vol. editors: Helen Rachel Cousins (Birmingham Newman University), David Firth (University of Manchester)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1969

Places

Nigeria (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection

Resources

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“Poems from Prison” is a 15 inch by 10 inch broadsheet, printed on parchment-like paper, folded into three columns. Two poems, “Live Burial” and “Flowers for my Land”, grace one side, with title page, publication information and a note on Soyinka's release from prison on the other side. Both are reproduced in

A Shuttle in the Crypt

. In

A Shuttle

, “Live Burial” has some changes in punctuation and four additional stanzas on individual prison guards at Kaduna Prison. The original, shorter poem is the better for its conciseness and more general tone of condemnation. “Flowers for My Land” is also extended in

Shuttle

by four stanzas, with vocabulary and punctuation changes. The changes emphasize communal solidarity, but warn of others who may “press to full /…

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896 words

Citation: McLuckie, Craig. "Poems from Prison". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 October 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12834, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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