The need to constantly engage Nigeria’s students across the country has inspired Zacchaeus Onumba Dibiaezue Memorial Libraries (ZODML) to institute a poetry challenge, which is open to students in public tertiary institutions.
The competition, with the theme ‘motherhood’ has received over 700 entries and is aimed to inculcate a competitive spirit among students, as well as challenge them to think intellectually.
According to Ifeoma Esiri, the brain behind ZODML, while sharing insights on the poetry challenge, the competition has the tendency to awaken the creative process in the students. In constructing a poem for the challenge, students will develop skills of creative self-expression and experimentation with language. The challenge will set them to think and then prepare and formulate their thoughts.
On the choice of a poetry challenge, Esiri stated that the students that join the challenge would be exposed to good literature as they would need to read literary works to do well adding that it would allow them to acquire language skills leading to better performance in their studies.
“I strongly believe that the challenge will make for disciplined, well-organized students with a will to compete and win. After the challenge is over, this discipline and orderliness will become part of other aspects of their lives. It will inspire them, they will gain competence, and that will give them confidence”, she said.
Speaking further, Esiri noted that the challenge received 791 entries out of which 232 were rejected for various reasons, adding that the number would further be narrowed down to 10 finalists, which would be announced on Mother’s Day, May 14th, in line with the challenge’s theme of Motherhood.
Meanwhile, the challenge will culminate in an award event in the presence of stakeholders of the literary community in the country. The overall winner will receive a N100,000 cash prize, while four runners-up will get N10,000 each.
To ensure the challenge receives the transparent process it deserves, a panel of three judges, consisting of notable poets and authors, will oversee the judging process. They include Mr. Tade Ipadeola as the chairman. He is a multiple award-winning author in prose and poetry who writes in Yoruba and English. Other judges are Ms. Aduke Gomez (a poet and author of children’s stories), and Ms. Achalugo Chioma Ilozumba, an award-winning playwright.