The West Africa Poetry Prize (WAPP) is an initiative that aims create a renaissance of the poetry genre. Over the years, the art of writing and appreciating poetry seemed to have experienced a decline since the era of the region's major poets. Poets like REG Armattoe of Ghana and Dennis Osadebey of Nigeria may not have been as renowned as the Wole Soyinka and David Diop group but their poetry received canonisation in ways not yet rivalled by modern West African poets.
Poetry as an art is central to creativity and to chronicling of West African society and values. From its oral origins, poetry in West Africa came a long way to where it is now. In its present form, there have been books and audio anthologies of poetry, often published in small volumes by small presses, thus limiting the audiences for the works of the poets. A handful of poets have written in West African languages, which are positive developments, but also have been the bane of their effort, as fewer people in the already-small circle can
access them.
Of late, there has been a different kind of renaissance of some sort for poetry in West Africa with the spoken word movement, which are reminiscent of the days of the griots and traditional performance poets.
