Wirndzerem G. Barfee: Shortlisted Author for EduART Bate Besong Award for Poetry

"Wirndzerem G. Barfee  has been shortlisted for the EduART Bate Besong Award for Poetry for his poetry collection Bird of the Oracular Verb. Born on August 1, 1975 in Kumbo, Bui Division, North West Province of Cameroon, Barfee read Mass Communication at the University of Jos, Nigeria. He  also holds an LLB (University of Yaoundé II), a BA (Linguistics), an MA (English) from the University of Yaoundé I where he is currently doing a doctorate program in American Literature with critical interests in eco-criticism and feminism. A two time participant of the British Council/ Lancaster University CROSSING BORDERS pan-African creative writing program (2004/2006), he had earlier been a selected participant in the BBC/BRITISH COUNCIL Environmental Writing Workshop in 1996. He recently, with a national grant, published a poetry collection, Bird of the Oracular Verb (Iroko Publishers, 2008), and in 2009 his short story, “Jury of the Corrupt”, was included in the The Spirit Machine and Other Stories (CCCPress, UK), an anthology of Anglophone Cameroonian short stories. He has published poems and essays in literature and culture in publications such Palapala Magazine (USA), AfricanWriters.com(Nigeria),  Saraba (Nigeria), Sentinel Poetry Quaterly (UK), Fabafriq (UK/S.Africa) and Conversation Poetry (UK). He has also been involved in editorial projects which include Songs for Tomorrow anthology (Miraclaire, 2009), Ngoh Kuoh Review (Miraclaire, 2011) and Eco-Salvation poetry anthology (Miraclaire, 2011).  Having a passion for songwriting, he has also written songs in Lamnso (his native tongue), English and French for two local artists. A graduate of the National School of Administration and Magistracy, specializing in public finance, he works with the Ministry of Finance, Cameroon."

Comments

[WIRNDZEREM G BARFEE]

As the very humble & very flattered winner of the 2011 prestigious Eduart's Bate Besong prize for poetry, I, using this privileged medium, would infinitely extend my very heart-warmed and soul-touched gratitude to the Eduart family and to the readers/jury who discerned in my collection, Bird of the Oracular Verb, poetic grain worthy enough of the mill the that grinds flour delectable enough for the table of a poetic legend as veritable and venerable as Bate Besong whose dedicated prize and artistically exacting name I onerously bear around this literary banquet, albeit with gratification. My profound gratitude too to Dr J. Ashutangtang whose indefatiguable passion has kept this invaluable project alive and aloud, you are a person of sterling mettle. Keep the Flame.

[JA]

Thanks Mr. Barfee. Writers like you infuse me with energy. To God be the glory!

[eyallow]

I am always stumped when I read literary pieces from Cameroonian writers. It appears to me that they are more focused on verbosity than telling a succinct story.

I have read some of Bate Besong's works. The only reason I see why he's never been internationally acclaimed is the fact that he clouded his magnificent ideas with wordiness.

An example of this kind of mentality can be found in the above passage, written by the recipient of this literary award. As a writer myself, I started out in the west with this notion. But when I joined writer groups and forums my eyes were opened.

Look at Ernest's Hemingway's minimalistic writing style, so concise it is crisp like sandpaper. Read Ben Okri's works. We need to reevaluate the sort of literary writing we are promoting in Cameroon, if our writers should gain international recognition.

Beauty in language isn't about verbosity. It is about linking simple sentences together such that they sing beautifully to a reader. It isn't about confusing the readers, it is about fluency that resonates with those readers. It is about telling a wonderful story.

[Godwin Nzeribe]

@eyallow: it's so interesting reading ur very cynical contribution that does even care to appreciate the minds and means behind this unprecendented prize to promote the literature of ur country (at least it would have been “minimalistically” decent and considerate of u to commence from such token civilities - with no backslapping intended, nevertheless)...and then you go on copiously to criticize and propose alien yardsticks of successful writing, yardsticks which if we spanned the spectrum to list the abstract & obtuse (excuse my own verbosity, whatever you mean by that!) specimen of very renowned standard-setting writers like Beckett, Ezra Pound, TS Eliot, James Joyce etc (just to pinch a few from the celebrated western canon that's ur cult reference) I would be secure about what the conclusion of your reference writing will sound like! That granted, what about the convolute but esthetic letters of our won Nigerian and Nobelized Wole Soyinka whom Bate Besong adored (for the anecdote: he and Babila Mutia had had the student literary paper the two published during their varsity days in Nigeria autographed by our literary colossus with inspiring words of encouragement written in his own hand)? What about BB himself winning our prestigious ANA award back in the day, was it not international enough for your western centered standards? What do you really read? Do u understand the skewed politics and economics of Western recognitions? Must recognition be occidental and interantional before your lamentably informed opinion accept it as good? You mock and excoriate the young appreciative writer above in his original word of gratitude, one using intriguingly his stock in trade - language - in, from what I understand, a very condign context, one of the celebration of language and its beauty in all chosen dimensions and directions. Don't u wanna let a hundred flowers bloom, man? What kinds of literature do u read? Don’t u have a sense of genres? How do u compare the writing and language of an iconoclastic poet and dramatist like BB with that of prose writers (Hemmingway and Okri) when we elementarily know that prose is essentially a more demotic genre while poetry a highly personal one (exacting more diligence -for a good chunk of it - in its reading than prose)! What of linguistic style did Beckett revolutionarize the drama/theatre of his times with? It was not “verbose” but I guess it was not as accessible to the uninitiated, yet it was minimalist! Read, my dear Eyallow, read…we should not be active destroying and de-centering canons, while u are there busy consolidating that centering of such canons (if u ever understood what this means. Though I am no writer, merely an avid reader and lover of Cameroon Anglophone literature, and who is yet to join any writers fora or groups that will peel the scales off my eyes…(if there ever will be any to deny a hundred styles from blooming. ). I am Nigerian born in Cameroon and educated in the two countries, so I once more crave ur indulgence for my own unpardonable, grandiloquent (perhaps obfuscating) and obdurately iterated verbosity. For I recognize ur school loathes to task diligence in reading.