Celebrating The Literary World Of JP Clark

By Hope Eghagha

It is within the context of a poignant, profound and perhaps arcane ritual imagination that we encounter John Pepper Clark in his literary world as evidenced by the evocative power of his primal poetic and dramatic compositions.

          *Professor Eghagha (Right) with the late pioneer writer, 

         Professor JP Clark 

Especially so are some of the early works such as Song of a Goat through Ozidi, the ‘middle’ The Boat, The Return Home, Full Circle, Casualties and the later Remains of a Tide.

His only known work of prose the semi-autobiographical and bitingly sarcastic America their America, at once immediate in content and prophetic in thematic concern exists outside this ontology of ritual and the mythic imagination.

Celebrating The Literary World Of JP Clark

By Hope Eghagha

It is within the context of a poignant, profound and perhaps arcane ritual imagination that we encounter John Pepper Clark in his literary world as evidenced by the evocative power of his primal poetic and dramatic compositions. Especially so are some of the early works such as Song of a Goat through Ozidi, the ‘middle’ The Boat, The Return Home, Full Circle, Casualties and the later Remains of a Tide.

*JP Clark 

His only known work of prose the semi-autobiographical and bitingly sarcastic America their America, at once immediate in content and prophetic in thematic concern exists outside this ontology of ritual and the mythic imagination. Almost to the letter (or depth) of contemporary effusions from Trumpian America, this work captures the supercilious arrogance of white America and victims of racial disharmony narrated after a personal encounter with the programmed academy of American culture, capitalism and sociology which our young and bristling JP had found condescending and utterly restrictive.