All is set for Performance Poetry Class with Bash, to kick off this weekend at Ozidu House, Osun Cresent, Maitama, Abuja. This two-day performance poetry course, which would explore the art, tricks, and business of performance poetry would hold on Friday, the 24th to Saturday, the 25th January 2020. Interestingly, it is not a virtual class and it costs only N3,000, which in our opinion is way too cheap for a 14-hour intensive course work, with each day’s class beginning at 10 am and ending at 5 pm.

As 2019 crawled slowly to an end, we made a list of seven writers’ resolutions necessary for a writing breakthrough this 2020 and taking paid courses as well as other variants of self-investment was a part of it. This is why we are excited to announce that everything is set to train more stage poets. We cannot wait for Bash and his co-facilitator who are gods of stage poetry to replicate themselves in up and coming performance poets. Truth is, we need more Dike Chukwumerijies and Titiloupe Shonugas to take poetry from the page to the stage in a way that does not mock the very essence of poetry.

Our advice to Abuja-based spoken word poets and those visiting Abuja this weekend is to invest this 3k in their performance poetry career bu following the payment instruction on the flier.

Meet Your Facilitators

Bash’ Amuneni

Bash’ Amuneni is one of Nigeria’s foremost performance poets. His poetry is laced in love, memory and the dynamics of the human condition. He has performed poetry at various platforms in and outside Nigeria –  from the Lagos International Poetry Festival (LipFest) in 2016 & 2019 and most recently at KABAFest 2019 and the 23rd Poetry Africa International Festival in Durban, South Africa.

In 2017, Bash Amuneni was awarded by the Abuja Literary Society for his sustained work in the development of Literary/Arts Programmes in Nigeria. Amuneni was also a guest performance poet at the European Union Human Rights Night in December 2017.

In January 2018, he was a guest performance poet at the commissioning of The African Development Bank Head Office building in Abuja by The Nigerian Vice President. He had also been a guest performance poet at 73rd Session of Executive Committee and 41st Congress of Leaders of African Parliamentary Union in Abuja and the USAID IHP Program Launch.

He is the author of the collection of poems ‘There Is A Lunatic In Every Town’. His forthcoming projects are a collection of poems and audio EP titled, ‘We don’t bury bodies ugly here’ and ‘Unboxed”. Bash is also an Architect.

RICHARD ALI

Richard Ali is a Nigerian lawyer, novelist, and poet. Author of the warmly received 2012 novel, City of Memories, Richard was Editor-in-Chief of the Sentinel Nigeria Magazine and was a runner-up at the 2008 John la Rose Short Story Competition. He has been Publicity Secretary of the Association of Nigerian Authors (2011 to 2015). A founding member of the Nairobi-based arts collective, Jalada Africa, he also sits on the board of the Babishai Niwe Poetry Foundation, based in Kampala, Uganda, which runs BN Poetry Award—Africa’s only in-Africa continental poetry prize.

He has served as a consultant, holding a public policy-shaping role as Technical Assistant to the Honourable Minister of Interior from 2015 to 2017, working on the Ministry Strategy Group (MSG). He is presently Programme Manager of the Association of Nigerian Authors Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (ANA PCVE) program, which seeks to use literature to counter extremism. A noted expert on issues of violent extremism, he is an alumnus and member of the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies (ACSS) and has participated in several roundtables across Africa.

He is also an alumnus of the US State Department’s International Visitor’s Leadership Programme (IVLP). He co-founded Parrésia Publishers Limited in 2012 and practices law in Abuja, Nigeria. His debut collection of poems, The Anguish, and Vigilance of Things, were published in 2019 by Konya Shamsrumi.

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