₦airaland Forum

Where is my generation of poets? what is happening? wasted generation are we? i hope not, i believe we are not.
Niyi Oshundare and co., w`sup?

i just stumbled on a couple of poems that were really delighful in those days.

WE HAVE COME HOME by Lenri Peters
SEASONS     By Wole Soyinka
THE CALL OF THE RIVER NUN Gabriel Opkara
IBADAN  by J P Clark
OLOKUN
STREAMSIDE EXCHANGE all by Prof J.P Clark


Streamside Exchange  

 Child: River bird, river bird,

Sitting all day long

On hook over grass,

River bird, river bird,

Sing to me a song

Of all that pass

And say,

will mother come back today?

Bird: You cannot know

And should not bother;

Tide and market come and go

And so shall your mother,

By: J.P. Clark

Abiku  
 In vain your bangles cast

Charmed circles at my feet;

I am Abiku, calling for the first

And the repeated time.



Must I weep for goats and cowries

For palm oil and the sprinkled ash?

Yams do not sprout in amulets

To earth Abiku's limbs.



So when the snail is burnt in his shell

Whet the heated fragments, brand me

Deeply on the breast. You must know him

When Abiku calls again.



I am the squirrel teeth, cracked

The riddle of the palm. Remember

This, and dig me deeper still into

The god's swollen foot.



Once and the repeated time, ageless

Though I puke. And when you pour

Libations, each finger points me near

The way I came, where



The ground is wet with mourning

White dew suckles flesh-birds

Evening befriends the spider, trapping

Flies in wind-froth;



Night, and Abiku sucks the oil

From lamps. Mother! I'll be the

Supplicant snake coiled on the doorstep

Yours the killing cry.



The ripes fruit was saddest;

Where I crept, the warmth was cloying.

In the silence of webs, Abiku moans, shaping

Mounds from the yolk.

          By: Wole Soyinka


boastful, mystical, mysterious, diabolical, awe inspiring, this poem is hardly an incantation.

laudate

Labyrinths by Chris Okigbo is another favourite.

please, car you jar our memory by reproducing this poem? PLEASE.
i love Africa very much too.

did you know that David Diop, the Senegalese Poet died in 1960, by a plane crash?

COLLINS SCRABBLE TOURNAMENT AND CLUB WORDLIST.

only problem is i can never get to finish the book. it explosive, will drive you nuts with earth moving new words.

Casualties

yes, nice poem too. i remember. that one gave us lines like:

many are the casualties who have no say in the matter
dying by instalment

are we not all casualties of the realities of daily living in Nigeria? did we have any say in the matter? are we not dying instalmentally?

poets are prophets, but prophets are not poets.

i happened to meet the teacher that taught us English and the first question that cae to my mind was how is my Mr. Giwa doing? she almost convulsdd with laughter.
you see Mr G and David were like living souls. we knew them personally.
today i just found out that mr giwa now runs a motor mart on adeniran ogunsanya road and david works with mtn.

~groping in the dark~

i can see that i have missed more than  i knew.

nairaland is beginning to make more sense than i ever thought it would.

can someone finish off the Abiku, Part1?

"The Vultures"

In those days

When civilization kicked us in the face

When holy water slapped our cringing brows

The vultures built in the shadow of their talons

The bloodstained monument of tutelage

In those days

There was painful laughter on the metallic hell of the roads

And the monotonous rhythm of the paternoster

Drowned the howling on the plantations

O the bitter memories of extorted kisses

Or promises broken at the point of a gun

Of foreigners who did not seem human

Who knew all the books but did not know love

But we whose hands fertilize the womb of the earth

In spite of your songs of pride

In spite of the desolate villages of torn Africa

Hope was preserved in us as in a fortress

And from the mines of Swaziland to the factories of Europe

Spring will be reborn under our bright steps.

i read the book. nice book. it gave me the perfect start to my university essay. forget the simplicity of the bucolic life so portrayed in that book. the book is a materpiece in guerrilla warfare reportage. the MAU MAU is seen for the first time in its true self.
i was in Nairobi and i took time to talk the book over with some Kenyas, we visited the sites of the rallies. it was beautiful.

i rank the novel among these the best ever written,

1. the beautyful ones are not yet born, ayi kwei amah
2.things fall apart , chinua achebe
3.weep not child, ngugi wa thiongo

they are all cast in gold

sorry The Vultures is not a Nigerian poem. it is from Senegal by David Diop.

in those days, when civilisation kicked us in the face

when holy waters slapped our clinging brows

the vultures built in the shadow of their talons blood stained monument of tutelage



i`ll continue