Popular Nigerian Poet, Godson Osarenren, has unveiled the maiden edition of the Naija Poetry Fest in an effort to mark the World Poetry Day, WPD.
The fest featured presentation of spoken word poetry competition among young poets, where three winners emerged with the overall winner getting an option of a scholarship to study abroad or collect a cash prize of N200,000.
Speaking at the WPD event held at the Glass Hall, Faculty of Education, University of Lagos, Unilag with the theme: “Unleashing the Spellbinding Power of Spoken and Penned Words” organized by Lead Convener of Naija Poetry Fest, Osarenren said that poetry is a mirror of the society.
His words: “Poetry is a mirror of the society, it mirrors the society and people get the benefit of understanding deep verses and what the society is in a different perspective. I intend to make this an annual event in which people would benefit and young poets would aspire to become better poet.
“We are doing these to encourage literacy and reading culture and ensure that people read and write, that is the essence of everything we are doing”, he said.
On his part, Published Author, Silver Ifedigbo, said that the fest helped to reinforce the importance of poetry and literature in general.
“For every young person that participated, literature is further enriched, it is refreshing to celebrate literary festival such as this”, Ifedigbo said.
Also, Dr Nwachukwu Egbunike, a Poet urged the government to support the education system so as to increase distribution channels for the publishing industry.
He advised Nigerian poets to develop a never give up spirit to be able to withstand the season and times.
Egbunike said: “Government should provide for the common good of the society, boost educational system to discover talents and increase distribution channels for the publishing industry. Just make life easy and enabling for poets to deliver good job.
