Culture Anthology by Black Pride Magazine

Poetry is the ability to create the true language of emotion, as rightly described by Owings Mills, M.D., U.S.A.

There are more to culture than just being the way of life of a specific group of people. Culture goes beyond the values, norms, and behaviors of a particular geographical people; it involves other things like marriages, folklores, gods (deities), festivals, ceremonies and lots more.

While selecting the theme for this collection, the motive of BLACK PRIDE Magazine team is to establish the objective of the magazine which is to project the African culture.

The fifteen poems of this collection, which have embrace most of the experiences relating to African culture, slipped out from the mouth of fourteen different young poets who are exceptional in how they structured their poems within a conceptual tradition of African world.

Akinbode Israel in TRIBAL MARKS writes culture to be hidden under skin, that is, it is within ones mind “In silence, I once laid under skins”.

The fact remains that, the level at which our culture is fading in this contemporary era due to the so called tag “civilizations” would make someone wonder what will happen to the next-generation coming after us.

We cherish, appreciate and even nurture western culture, foisted on us by our colonial masters over our indigenous culture. Even at our various homes, children who are victims of this scorn tend to believe that western cultures are far superior to that which confers in us our national identity and this made Benjamin Elemide to reflect his poem titled WE ARE LOST on the lost of our dear culture and traditions “Let us paint our face the colour of shame” and”For turning beauty of the past to the world facing home with the ugliness of the present”.

Despite all these our attitudes towards our culture, there are still ways and places in which this our culture can be praised and practised and this will never happen until we keep on reminding the citizens through our works of art, such as; poetry, articles, essays, stories and lots more.

The anthology will be of immense value to most African citizens. It is a clarion call to blacks to remember their origins and work towards projecting this culture.