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Poetry, my love; my joy, inspiration and motivation OTOBOTEKERE 13/5/2010
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Look at the moon
Thus my love with poetry and Nature was sealed. Compare my little poem decades later on Hide-and-seek moon:
O childhood love fairest by night
You still make me leap like a child whenever you turn into view Your full face round.
You 're mine ever heavenly sheen, showing time and again Here and everywhere.
Going to farm with grandmothers where singing birds and gaily dressed butterflies were playmates was another factor. At the secondary and tertiary school levels, English and Latin texts took me over with regard to what I style "poetic thinking". My pamphlet, "poetry world" published 2005 refers to this phase. Still more, the stories of Aeneas doing battle "in the ringing plains of windy troy", the strategies of King Tumus, his formidable opponent, the fantasies and wiles of the Trojan horse, as well the fair face of Helen that launched a thousand ships in the siege of Troy as presented by Vergil in Latin verse, stretched my imagination; not to mention the ornate rhetoric of Cicero with courtiers in the Roman Senate. Furthermore, the literary expertise of the great Shakespeare, of John Milton (the most lion hearted of English poets}, the young Keats and Wordsworth, the environmental idol playing with idyllic notes, all came my way. The exciting old English narratives of Geoffrey Chaucer and the liquid flow of Spencer also attracted me before I tumbled on a distinguished American poet/philosopher, John Hall Wheelock, imperial with clear poetic music whose poetry book (By daylight and in dream) I rarely put back in its bookshelf. I was definitely fascinated. Doubtless, such heights of poesy (versification, poetry or otherwise) are bound to make an impact on my literary psyche. This is admitted. They must have rubbed off on me. However, I believe I have been saved from becoming a total victim to any of the above icons by a simple guideline I designed for myself, viz:
Whatever the garment Whatever the sound Look at it with my eye, Listen with my inner ear Before I wear or play it.
The rule is expressly canvassed in my poem Coarse melodies and exemplified in my poems Jerusalem report; Papa looks on, Sekiyo-Sekiyo and They all speak to me. On the opposite table, however, I even have sonnets, namely, A glance and parts of Beach fair where departed ones take the scene. Whatever it is, my eye and inner ear remain the ultimate guide which at times tempts me to make birds and monkeys think and speak in their own dialect. Be that as it may, my love for the poetry of great authors apparently inspired my poem Poetry in heaven (1987), in which I averred:
It must be Heaven itself Is garlanded with poetry; The dancing music on pictorial lines of superlative art.
The same that keep Angels and aides And all that be Swaying in melody, In that happy land.
By the way, a cynic once observed by way of a courteous query: ‘Your poetry has a taste for waves, winds, sky, river flow and splashes’. My spontaneous reply: 'That's natural for anyone who has lived most of his life in the surroundings of these elements’. Though spontaneous, the above statement is true mathematically because, except for brief trips to the Netherlands and Israel, and 4 years in the city of Buea on the Cameroon mountains and 3 years in Fourah Bay, Freetown -- like Buea, beautifully overlooking the sea, the rest of my time, so far, has been spent in the Niger Delta where these elements rule. The beauty of silence welling up in a number of my poems is another good example of environmental factor. Here goes an excerpt from Upon the river-SILENCE, painting river silence at cool evening:
Incredible love – The silence here deep forever Which primal Nature casis around All land and river Is too profound for me to sound.
Here is silence that explodes His glory - Creator Great – And the love that beclouded Silenced Calvary!
Influences on any contemplative writer are many. Socio-cultural and political influences are difficult to avoid. Even religious mindsets and vicissitudes of individual life experience are potential factors. They are embedded and are likely to surface here or there. At times they form the main theme as in Achebe's Things Fall Apart. My books on main themes of rulership (Live 2 Lives), religion (Across the bridge-diadems forever) and on games (What of those games and dances?) also illustrate. Just listen to the armed robber fastened to a stake facing a firing squad in my Quit it all in Live 2 Lives: sharp/bitter/penitent words to his own mother, sponsor uncle, girl-friend and apprentices! You can also sympathise with the regrets of a young politician after a disastrous climb ‘to Abuja high- without age/ without ballot/ without ticket’ in my Naked Power!
The above is the background on the growth of my interest in poetry writing, but the starting point came with an informal advice a friend gave me as narrated in my Acknowledgements in the book Live 2 Lives published 2009. In brief, he advised me not to throw away my casual poetry writings as I was doing then. Soon, the first book came, entitled Playful notes and keys (1987). It was indeed playful. My set course of publications followed, on the way to the final book, still ahead, to be entitled Background Report. Parallel with this development, my inborn desire to share what I have and what I know with my children and with posterity was growing. I began to reflect the idea in some of my poems, and went on to include a few of my children's own poems m my poetry collections, to nurse their interest. The desire to share also motivated me to compile a whole book, entitled. What of those games and dances^ focusing games and dances that flourished "in our days", but now "lost and forgotten" or at best, "endangered specie" giving way to imported games. Other poems in (he series reflect and lament the environmental/ ecological loss 1 have noticed in the past seven decades.
In several ways I have called on writers, sociologists, politicians and rulers to team up and engender redress. Come with me to listen and to hear I have demanded. Also see my poems Drum Calls (1 to vi). Closing fast (1 to iii) and, specifically, my books Live 2 lives, My River and Next to Reality. Yet, what a feeble voice ! Almost in tears, I cry:
May this land ever remain Grass-green and flourish With meadows and weighty boughs Ever courted by the topic sun, Romanced by song-birds And sought by scented breeze No less than foreigners Seeking new health.
A global response is needed.
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