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 Yorùbá oral tradition of Oríkì, 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 Yorùbá poetry which is one of the world’s most fascinating literary traditions. African Poems Volume One: A Praise Anthology to Yorùbá Orishas, Rituals, Traditions and Wisdom will delight the readers with its wealth of information on Yorùbá Òrìṣà 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 Yorùbá Oríkì to different Òrìṣà, divinities of the Yorùbá 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 Yorùbá traditional culture, rituals, traditions, social aspects and wisdom, written mostly, in free style poetry. It is common knowledge that rhyme plays an important role in world poetry but its role is not as important in Yorùbá poetry, as it is certain that rhyme is completely strange to the Yorùbá poetic patterns, as it is to the Yorùbá language itself. Thus, it is our hope that this poetic African-themed edition succeeds in giving the reader a taste of Yorùbá traditional Oríkì poetry thus, in a modern free style. This stunning collection of poems was created to showcase the diversity of Yorùbá Òrìṣà culture and author Alex Cuoco, specifically chose to integrate some of the Yorùbá orthography, to give the reader a taste of the fascinating Yorùbá language. This edition also brings the reader additional background information contained in the extensive glossary.
