ABSTRACT

This article asks what we are reading for when we read poems in African-run literary magazines that are increasingly online. How can we begin to theorise the significance of publication and experience of reading in digital formats? In the wake of a debate in literary studies about lyric reading, the author suggests that reading African poetry in digital litmags gives us an opportunity to rethink how exactly poems are entangled with history – and that reading for lyric involves attending to how a poem might aspire to outlive its initial historical context. Drawing on unpublished sources as well as online and print materials, the article discusses such African-run litmags as Sentinel Poetry (Online), Maple Tree Literary Supplement, Jalada, Saraba and Agbowó. For poets including Ogaga Ifowodo, Tsitsi Jaji, Jumoke Verissimo and Logan February who have chosen to publish in these litmags, political liberation entails reimagining sociality, subjectivity and sexuality. Ultimately, the article argues, their poems should not only be located in the recent past but also recognised as opening up temporalities of recurrence and futurity that show up the limitations of the present.

摘要

这篇文章询问当我们在日益在线的非洲文学杂志上阅读诗歌时，我们正在阅读什么。我们如何开始理论化出版和数字格式阅读体验的重要性？在文学研究中关于抒情阅读的辩论之后，作者建议在数字 litmags 中阅读非洲诗歌让我们有机会重新思考诗歌是如何与历史纠缠在一起的——而抒情阅读涉及关注一首诗可能如何渴望以超越其最初的历史背景。本文利用未发表的资源以及在线和印刷材料，讨论了诸如哨兵诗歌（在线）、枫树文学增刊、Jalada、Saraba和Agbowó等非洲经营的litmags. 对于选择在这些杂志上发表作品的 Ogaga Ifowodo、Tsitsi Jaji、Jumoke Verissimo 和 Logan February 等诗人来说，政治解放需要重新想象社会性、主观性和性。最终，文章认为，他们的诗不仅应该定位在最近的过去，而且应该被视为开启了展示现在局限性的再现和未来的时间性。