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.