The Culture Advocates Caucus (CAC) will curate ProvidusBank World Poetry Day Café: An Evening with Wole Soyinka to celebrate the UNESCO-marked World Poetry Day on Thursday.

World Poetry Day (WPD) is celebrated every March 21 globally, as declared by UNESCO in 1999 to “promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry throughout the world” and “give fresh recognition and impetus to national, regional, and international poetry movements”.

Since 2020, Providus Bank, under its CSR initiative Providus Bank Poetry Café, has hosted the celebration of the WPD, curated by the CAC and directed and produced by Jahman Anikulapo, under the supervision of Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka.

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Officially titled ‘ProvidusBank World Poetry Day Café: An Evening with Wole Soyinka’, the past editions have treated themes relating to the general human condition, especially on matters relating to the preservation of the environment, education and mental empowerment of the youth, protection of the girl-child and respect for the female gender, among others.

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The project has been held every year since its inception, but the 2020 edition was cancelled at the last minute due to the outbreak of COVID-19, which compelled the lockdown of cities around the world, including Lagos, on March 19, two days to the staging of the edition.

The 2024 edition coincides with the 90th birthday anniversary year of Soyinka, who is a globally celebrated poet, dramatist, memoirist, essayist, pubic intellectual, and above all, a human and civil rights defender.

The 5th edition is on the theme ‘World Poetry Day 2024: Engaging the Quintessential Poet Wole Soyinka @90’. It will feature presentations and performances by nine poets – six Nigerians and three from other countries.

Cutting across age and experience, the poets have been selected based on their varied styles and techniques of poetry writing and renditions. In their individual presentations/ performances, the poets will be having a “conversation with Soyinka” by engaging their chosen poems of Soyinka in their individual diction and styles.