African Poems Volume One: Àṣẹ Òrìṣà!: A Praise Anthology to Yorùbá Orishas, Rituals, Traditions and Wisdom - Paperback

by Alex Cuoco (Author)

In the literate tradition of poetry, the poet's appeal to an audience is dual: namely, auditory and visual, the sound of words as spoken, as well as the words as set on paper. Today, in view of the modern world of increasing digital technology, the consequent tendency of the reader has shifted to reading poems privately, in their nooks/tablets, rather than listening to them at poetry recitals. Few authors, still venturing into the world of the printed pages, manage to keep alive the magic of the art of reading poetry directly from a physical book. In honor of this fading art, author Alex Cuoco created the African Poems Series to put into print a form of African art, the Yor b oral tradition of Or k , with the hopes of distancing it from the list of items threatened to fall into extinction. This poetry edition brings the reader a repertoire of magical evocations, startling imagery, mythological allusions, reclamations, outrages, reasoning and wisdom, all against the backdrop of Yor b poetry which is one of the world's most fascinating literary traditions. African Poems Volume One: A Praise Anthology to Yor b Orishas, Rituals, Traditions and Wisdom will delight the readers with its wealth of information on Yor b r ṣ religious beliefs that is presented in a spirited poetic form. This Anthology contains eight chapters and 317 poems in total. Chapter one, being the most extensive one, entitled: Praise to the Orishas, provides portraits of poetic praises, based on traditional Yor b Or k to different r ṣ , divinities of the Yor b pantheon. The following seven themed chapters, Divine Metamorphosis, Power and Traditions, Ritual Rising, Awaking the Spirits, Of Gods and Man, Call of the Gods and Reclaiming the Soil, contain sixteen poems each, embracing a variety of themes concerning different aspects of Yor b traditional culture, rituals, traditions, social aspects and wisdom, written mostly, in free style poetry. It is common knowle