Emmanuel Faith, the author of Chronicles of an Intern, has emerged winner of the annual Words Rhymes & Rhythm Publishers Albert Jungers Poetry Prize (AJPP) 2019 for his 20-line rhyming poem Like Babies.
Like Babies (finalist in March) beat Feast of Stars by Ogedengbe Tolulope Impact (February finalist) and Ponder the Yonder Wonders by Oladimeji Adam Adedayo (August finalist) to the prize which is awarded to the best poem from the combined top 10 entries of the monthly Brigitte Poirson Poetry Contest (BPPC) from February to September 2019.
Emmanuel was announced the winner of the prize at the 5th edition of the Words Rhymes & Rhythm Literary Festival, Feast of Words, which held on 7th December 2019, at Ado Awaye Suspended Lake, Ado Awaye, Oyo State. He was awarded N20,000 cash prize and, alongside other winners of the BPPC, a certificate of award.
WINNER’S BIOGRAPHY
Emmanuel Faith is a writer, economist, human capacity builder and the initiator of A Word A Day – a scheme founded to improve the quotidian diction of Nigerian youths. He studied Economics at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) and is currently an NYSC intern at General Electric as well as a core part of volunteer projects including The Lagos Series, The Taxville. A former intern at Meristem Securities as well as a former campus ambassador for Unilever, Faith has also interned with Taxaide Professional Services Limited where he explored the rudiments of taxes.
Faith is an avid reader and former guest writer at Pulse.ng. He was featured in The Dailies for reading 102 books in a single calendar year and he presently coordinates Bookathon, an initiative that encourages members to read at least five books in a month and provide reviews. He aspires to be a TEDx speaker and believes the world was made with words and could be made better with our words.
THE WINNING POEM: LIKE BABIES
Babies are blazing beams of beauty,
A sizzling scenery to behold
With sparkling smiles, boisterous bounty
And hearty laughter laced with gold.
They yell and scream their thoughts and worry,
Letting their fears out in scares.
In delight, they bounce, hale, hearty.
In pain, they wail to show their fears.
Babies do not die in pretence
Or wear a mask with different shades.
They enjoy life’s gift, its full essence
And cry out when they’re going through Hades.
Shouldn’t we all be little children,
Innocuous, with no restraint?
But we have grown into men and women
Shackled with callous constraint.
Like babies, let us spill out our feelings,
And rejoice and be glad in glee.
In being like a child lies our healing
And resplendent joy that spreads in spree.
The AJPP is an annual poetry award instituted in 2014 by Words Rhymes & Rhythm in honor of late Fr. Albert Jungers (1948 – 2013), a Priest, Poet, and Teacher. Fr. Al, as he was fondly called until his death, was an instructor and dear ‘father’ to young Nigerian poets. He brought different poetry forms to life with simple instructions.
The Brigitte Poirson Poetry Contest, a CSR project of Words Rhymes & Rhythm (WRR), is a monthly writing contest aimed at rewarding the under-appreciated talent of young Nigerian poets. It was instituted in 2015 in honor of Brigitte Poirson, a French poet and lecturer, editor, who has over the years worked assiduously to promote and support of African poetry. Regarded as one of the few credible contests for poets in Nigeria, the BPPC is popular among the younger generation of poets.
