Learning about African orature and poetry is essential. Equally, Orature from the various global cultures of people of African origin, regardless of … - Micere Githae Mugo

Writing can be a lifeline—especially when your existence has been denied, especially when you have been left on the margins, especially when your life and process of growth have been subjected to attempts at strangulation.

I clearly remember my introduction to the African American heritage. I was in the school sanatorium with a bad attack of the flu when the headmistress came to see me, bringing copies of Richard Wright's Native Son, Black Boy and Trevor Huddleston's Naught For Your Comfort, I could not put any of the books down. Later on I looked for books by James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison. From then on I became a part-time student of African American Literature which was not offered on the colonial syllabus.

The spoken word is only a tiny bit of orature: it is poetic oracy and oracy is what I define as the skillful use of linguistic-expression to create utterance that renders itself to performance.