₦airaland Forum

Dead Joseph Hill sang some lyrics
Of women rioting in the kitchen
Who downed their spoons and went on strike
Saying, 'all we want are equal rights'!

In jack boots, they marched to God
On soap boxes, they demanded repatriation
Protesting the curse of a man's world
That places no value on a woman's worth

Reversing the roles that knit society
Plunged the world to face into travesty
Of cuddling the pain of empty homes
Where alpha male becomes the drone

Proving themselves prolific breadwinners
Turned them leaders of the pack
Yet they still turn around and chant
Dude, why don't you be a man!

I have seen far better poems in this section and they never made the front page.

Lordave: Rip to the best author.
I read 66 of his books before 1966. I was not even up to 16 years then.

Liar!!!

This is powerful and inspirational

When children write
They write
Trusting nothing but pencils
And a sparse chest of words
They scribble a path
To a new worlds
Plunging head first
Into the uncertainty of play

When children write
Words play with pages
Betraying the nubile innocence
Of Their inky stains
They boom loud sounds
To dumb letters
They twist their imaginations
By the knob of their mistakes

When adults write
Words fight
With the hot-seated dogmas
And coloured perceptions
With ghosts that lurk
In the tunnels of thought
Just to squat
On the lines of pages

Their wary expressions
Distrust their fingers
Their fear (of failing)
Is hostile to their pens
Constantly they are haunted
By the conscience of their words
Because the world would judge them
Through a jury of 26 letters

Uncle Sam,
I hear you are now a tourist,
On a visit to Syria,
With your cousins
France, Britain and The Zionists
Your tour guide says
You would stop
By Iran
But you are unsure
About Russia

Bring back souvenirs
Of Orphans
Send me postcards
Of child soldiers
Like those ones in Angola.
Flirt with the widows
Please don't forget
Those perfumes
of Blood

You seem never to tire
Last week it was Egypt
Before then it was Libya
For decades
You have visited Africa
I wonder
when you would retire

Uncle Sam,
Just before you leave
Please drop your keys
To your stacked riches
To your dark secrets
For something tells me
You won't be coming home

Mynd, this sort of poem should make front page don't you think? Its a message to the youth

For writers to be accepted its more than enough to just 'pick up the pen and make waves'. Nigerian writers have been making waves off the shores of this country. We as writers find ourselves in society that values books, knowledge and ideologies like rubber slippers. Nigerians prefer to be entertained hence the numerous talent and reality shows, and the 'wave-making' musicians. If the literary and publishing structure is write, then writers would be appreciated.

The revolution should wait,
We are yet to invite him
Too busy are we
With ethnic bickerings.

The revolution cannot come.
Till we are done
Sucking our mother's tongue
And see ourselves as one

He stands on the hill,
Overlooking the gate of the city
With a message for us
But we attend to domestic chores

The last time he came,
The poet lied.
So did the preacher and the teacher
But our fathers? They ran

He could not speak to us,
Our fear served many masters
But he beckoned.
Like roasted yam in palm oil

He was caught and maimed
Executed after jailed
In a bid to delay judgment
........ Our judgment.

Days are fast coming.
Like a comet falling
When tribe would be less secure
And trinkets of religion gone.

Let the revolution wait.
Let's fill our plates.
The baptist is not here.
Why worry about the messiah?

What is Africa to them?
Bride of the world
Their dreams wrapped in silk
Fattened cow to be milked
Spineless gecko of sheated skin

Polyandrous wife of 5 husbands
Courted by dowry of flirtatious princes
Who sold her children
For mirrors, gin and salt
Who shall contend the enemy at the gate?

What is Africa to them
She is their testing ground
Of virility, theories and armoury
A country to most
Where savages and lions roam

She is the beast
That bears the world's burden
A slate to clear their bleeding conscience
A clay that moulds white martyrs
Like Bono, Madonna and Angelina

She is the orphan of her kin
That carries the village's pregnancy
A pot of many bellies
That no one cares to wash
A basket on barefoot

What is Africa to them?
But a bowl that beholds
The teardrops of gods
A nest of brooding hawks
A cloud to circling vultures

What is Africa to me?
A snail with broken shell
Convulsed libations of mother earth
Wreaths placed on my broken dreams
Drowning in tomorrow's stream

The writer's place as a component in the social structure may be procative, reactive or both. His musings while being reactions to happenstance in society, can also be foothills upon which society can catch a glimpse of the future. Life is a source of his inspirations, so the writer in us dies when society goes to the gallows. His desire to pursue a particular subject or issue is influenced by a bias rubbed off on his consciousness as a consequence of being a member of a particular society, culture, race, religion or whatever social compartment he finds himself. The pen is the mouthpiece of what his eyes has written down. Thus, it is not uncommon to find subjects such as science-fiction, serial killings, the beauty of summer et al from Europeans and North Amearicans, just as it is not uncommon to be bombarded by literature of wars, revolutions, ethnic politics, religious strifes from developing or under-developed countries. The latter explains why most African literature -especially the award winning ones- evolve round this derogatory theme.
If we take cognisance of the plethora of phenomena that threaten to negate the foundations underpinning our existence as a country, one is tempted to pose the question: what is the role of the writer in present-day Nigeria? As a social being existing within a particular cultural nexus, should the writer assume an impassive journalistic role, echoing the sentiments of an oppressed confused society or a messianic posture burdening himself with the charting of a new course for society? Should he be satisfied with giving headaches or adopt a contrasting standpoint in the issuance of prescriptions?
The imperativeness of such inquiry is underscored by who or what constitutes a writer. What parameters should be set when operationalizing the concept 'writer'. Is he one that scribbles with the distant objectivity of a lab scientist or is he a participant observer and actor in society. A writer to me embodies the latter qualities. A writer's duty is to pull society by the ears from the brink of anarchy and drag him towards humanism. The writers role is fundamentally more than that of a journalist. He is a cultural nationalist who aims to level the hills upon which popular supremacist ideologies look down on his society trapped in the murky waters of discrimination as exemplified in Frantz Fannon's 'Black skin, White masks', and Ngungi Wa Thong's 'decolonizing the mind'.
A writer is expected to be a leader and restore the dignity of his country as personified by Thomas Sankara and Leopold Senghor. Sometimes he may be a scapegoat for peace like Wole Soyinka or a revolutionary like Christopher Okigbo who takes up arms in defense of his rights. He is expected to criticize his society like Achebe did in his 'Man of the People' or record history for unborn generations like Oluduah Equiano. Last year, the Ugandan government issued a statement that sought to demolish the country's only museum, a historical and nonetheless national treasure in favour of a 60-storied trade centre. This move was aborted as a result of the resilient opposition of the writers in that country. Thus a writer is a warrior standing guard against the cultural marauders, a philosopher like Aime Caesar.
Now what is the role and place of the contemporary Nigerian writer in charting a progressive course for the country and continent? What is his stance in the cultural and mental revolution of his comprades? The fervor of Soyinka, Achebe, Flora Nwapa, Okigbo, JP-Clark, Odia Ofeimum and Niyi Osundare has been doused. The contemporary Nigerian writer is aloof or at best seems non-chalant to his current exiatential realities. He distances himself from society, and like a vulture searching for carcass, chooses to prophesy doom from foreign shores. He is now no more than an entertainer, a literary jester aiming to satisfy the cravings of the bewildered masses. At best he is a journalist echoing the sentiments of a confused group or at worst an ethnic bigot postulating parochial views. He can neither give headches to the political elite or offer prescriptions to the decadence of his society. His literature looks the other way, hungry for foreign acceptance and recognition. It does not stir in us the thirst for development and political change.
The foundations of world civilizations and thoughts were forged by the steel of pens. Such task does not come from the mass population, for there has to exist a certain class of people not swayed by the currents of society, but who watch and give meanings to the sequence of events. The onus falls on the writers to bell the cat. Would the Nigerian writer be satisfied with writing footnotes and glossary?