Poets in Nigeria (PIN) has designated Saturday May 25th for the release of Professor Francis Egbokhare’s debut poetry collection entitled “Casualties of Depravities and Other Poems”.
The poetry collection is an offshoot of the PIN Chapbook Series launched last year to showcase the creative prowess of Nigerian poets whilst documenting their views and opinions on contemporary issues. Furthering the objectives of the initiative, Egbokhare via this the poetry collection, wields sarcasm as a scourge for chasing out mediocrity, sycophancy and corruption plaguing the world of academia.
The poems, which are allegorical and epigrammatic and reinstate the status of the author as one of Nigeria’s paramount intellectuals, also touch upon other issues related to culture, nature, religiosity, hypocrisy, carnality and love.
Francis Oisaghaede Egbokhare, who hails from Afuze in Edo State, is a Professor of Linguistics and African Languages at the University of Ibadan where he once served as the Director of Distance Learning Centre.
Egbokhare, who is widely published in local and international journals, has authored the following books: Song of My Dreams, Christ Conscious Mind, Preying Mantis (Volume I & II) and Introductory Phonetics. He has also published about 35 books and essays on Emai, his mother tongue, in the space of 20 years.
He is the current President of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL).