by Isaiah Adepoju Ojo Olumide Emmanuel is a writer, teacher and a spoken word artist. He volunteered as a Radio Presenter with Ultimate FM 103.9, Campus Radio, College of Education Minna on the Poetry/Spoken Word Show ‘Voices of the Pen’. He is a librarian/ Mentor/Workshop Facilitator at the Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation in Niger State.
His works have appeared and forthcoming at Writers Egg magazine, INNSAEL, Bollman bridge Review, Fetal, Quills, The Nigerian Review (TNR) LitVo, Pictorial Poetry Coffee Book (Expanding Horizons), Raindrop of Love, Writers’ Space Africa (WSA) and elsewhere. He was longlisted for the Nigerian Student Poetry Prize (2020) and shortlisted for the Arojah Student Playwriting Prize (2020). He is a joint winner of Poets in Nigeria 10-Days Poetry Challenge (May,2019) and winner of Poet Choice Award of the Rotaract Club of Churchgate, India. He is currently the curator of Wakaso Prize for poetry and Abubakar Gimba Prize for Short Fiction, and is an alumnus of SprinNG Writers Fellowship. Adepoju Isaiah: Good Day Mr. Olumide, I welcome you to Tribesmen Magazine, where we seek to tell the African story the African way. Speaking of the African way, tell us some African words you have learned aside Hausa and Yoruba. Olumide Ojo: Na ƙù penda (I love you) in Swahili and it's my pleasure chatting with you. Adepoju Isaiah: It's a pleasure too. Tell us about yourself in few words and whether you're political or apolitical. Olumide Ojo: I am OJO Olumide Emmanuel. I am a teacher by training. A published poet and art administrator. I fancy politics but love to watch from afar. Adepoju Isaiah: Do you enjoy politicalness in poetry– i.e, concentricity of poetry on politics? Is ascetic Protestantism as a form of supplication to self and society similar to political activism? Olumide Ojo: We cannot pretend to ignore the fact that politics affect our personal and corporate existence. We all have political leanings and we try to propagate our views in line with what we consider nascent as far as politics is concerned. Poetry concentrating on politics or protesting against certain political anomalies is not out of place. Writers have been arrested and jailed for writing certain things that did not sit well with the leaders, or morbidity, therein. How do you expect poetry with quiet supplication? The writer is a standby mirror, a witness of/to the society and his duties include corking his quills in protest when tyranny threatens the solidarity of the state. You have heard that the quietness of the good people is insulin in the blood of a tyrant? This supplication is both to self and to society. You cannot eject an artist from himself and his society. You cannot detach humans from politics. Our various families are the lowest form of politics. We may pretend not to have political affiliations but we share minor sentiments with those in governance so we are all social and political animals, according to Aristotle. Adepoju Isaiah: Are those political poems resplendent in your poetry collection, Supplication For Years in Sand? Olumide Ojo: Very well. Poems like Blacklives (pg25), Father Is A Silent Talkative (pg 46) and #End Everything Wrong (pg47-48) explored the issues mentioned above. Adepoju Isaiah: I read Elliot's Aronson's analysis of humans as social animals; how prone to sociopathy and 'unhuman' we can be without the perpetual commandeering of legal institutions, or common way of social relation that control those acts. When I read the first poem, Bizarre, I became as grieved as the persona. I realize that all through the collection, you've given preference to the urchin. While I detest humanism as philosophy, I believe all social classes deserve attention. Have you given preference to the lower class? And, how do you choose whom to write for? Olumide Ojo: I like to explain that poetry as a vortex between man's consciousness and his soul. Since the soul is the most intelligent part of man, the voice in the poem is perhaps not representing anybody; rather it is speaking for itself. That grief is another way we can understand our humanity, that we are all broken at some points and healings may not even come handy even we don't strive to let it out in words. Life is about breaking and growing our boundaries. If we must renew our world, the artist must aggregate the thinking of the society into a model that works for everyone. The artist is a surgeon for every sickness of the universe Adepoju Isaiah: Beautiful answer. One universal truth all humans and animals answer to is pain, then we grieve, then we reminisce, just as all these things are inevitable, it's also imperative for the creative artist to question the status quo and try to forge new perspectives on things. Adepoju Isaiah: Are the poems in your collection inextricably linked? In your poem, Hearing the Wind, the 21st poem in the collection is not a Supplication for Years in Sand; it's rather a Prophecy for Years in Sand. Ritualistic; as Okigbo's Elegy for Alto. In writing the collection and choosing the poetic title, did you intend to follow a specific pattern of supplicating or is it just an eponymous title for the collection? Olumide Ojo: Supplication is an intimate kind of prayer. Its prayers are sediments to prophecy. The work may not follow similar order but they are interlinked by the common purpose of a willing to live, be heard. The poems are people with voice, sharing their personal experiences. I was following any pattern in the titles; they are just different poems calling each other within almost the same period. Adepoju Isaiah: You are a volunteer at Ultimate FM (103.9), Minna, how's the program? What do you do? Olumide Ojo: I no longer volunteer with them. Nevertheless, the program is a spoken word and poetry program where we bisect, dissect and analyze everything creative. We talk about literary works, we meet the authors to discuss their works, we promote their works on radio and above all we attend literary programs and inform our listeners on the latest happening in the literary world. Adepoju Isaiah: How have those periods influenced Supplication for Years in Sand? Olumide Ojo: Supplication For Years in Sands didn't really come from my work as a radio presenter even though my work then made me read more and get to meet brilliant minds out there. I'd say the work came during my writers’ fellowship at SprinNG. I was attached to a mentor who'd see that I complete my readings, write and ensure they are corrected. I communed more with silence, listened to my inner self and it was easy for the poem to drip as an overflow of my life experiences. Adepoju Isaiah: I find your choice of words in the collection rather exquisite. Examples as: I sun, I moon; we may Noah again etc. The latter line made use of metonymy and biblical allusion. For the latter – "We may Noah again" – has the question of interpretation bothered you, considering that your book is published in the North? Olumide Ojo: Firstly, I wasn't writing for the north. I was writing for humans. Even in Islam the character of Noah exists. Noah represents flood in the work and within the context of the poem, one can deduce that. Adepoju Isaiah: Do you have a poem in the collection that you have predilection for? Olumide Ojo: Yeah. I think Adun on page 42 and 43. It captured my longing for love and what names mean to me in the overall interpretation of love. The poem was like a coronation for a woman I haven't met as at the time of writing the work. Adepoju Isaiah: May you always find love. Olumide Ojo: Amen
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Zakiyya Dzukogi, 16, was runner-up for Nigeria Prize for Teen Authors (Poetry) 2020, and winner of the prize in 2021. She's been published on several magazines and journals and she has three books to her name - My Book of Poems, CARVED and her unpublished manuscript Winters and Summers which won the 2021 prize.
Meeting Zakiyya at HIASFEST 2021 held in Niger State, Minna, Nigeria, and her eventually winning the Nigeria Prize for Teen Authors (poetry category), was one of the best moments with acquaintances with teen writers as I am, who are relentlessly breaking boundaries of literary and academic doggedness of the Nigeria state. The title of her book, CARVED, gripped me and led eventually to this interview. For a young female growing up, it becomes imperative to register her growth, voluntarily or otherwise, and perhaps using her previously published books, My Book of Poems and CARVED, as specimen of experimentation of the typical Nigerian girl. But unfortunately her works isn't atypical; queer I would say, or perhaps an attempt "to see God." When I endorsed her for this interview she was more than receptive. From their monocle I was unavoidably drawn to a discuss with I, Mujahid, Maryam and the interviewee, for Book O'CLOCK Review, where Mujahid sparked the discussion on by asking why some people ask why writers write. In this case, I was even more elated that I want to ask why Zakiyya can't stop writing. This is raw coming from a voice that has already CARVED a niche for herself in the North of Nigeria! Adepoju Isaiah: Tell us something about you and your relationship with cats. And, do you have a pet or you wish to have one in future? Zakiyya Dzukogi: Yes I do. I’ve grown up to see cats around me and so I cannot help but love them. Keeping cats earns a Muslim reward because it is sunnah (sunnah is the actions of Prophet Muhammad SAW), it has been a type of ritual in my home. Adepoju Isaiah: Last year when you were second place in the Nigeria Prize for Teen Authors (Poetry category) which took place in Niger State, in an interview with Mujahid Lilo, you said CARVED is a compedium of poems that are "mostly positive because I love to have things I don’t have in my poems, I love to own happiness in poems." Reading it, and reading the foreword by Paul Laim, the head of Operations, Isu Media Abuja, where he made acute comparison between a young poet, even though empowered, but still laden with the simplicities of the adolescent - "hormonal imbalances akin to teenagers." How do you see CARVED even before you wrote it? Do you aim to own things you don't have in your poetry, by publicity or otherwise, or the process of poetry of CARVED is just to lessen the grief of not having? Zakiyya Dzukogi: Poetry isn’t worth without therapy, either the therapy of not having or the therapy to any type of grief. It is a therapy that I’ve enjoyed as a poet. Carved sketched a lot out of me, I have learned to love and understand poetry intensely while writing Carved, giving my whole self to it. I’ve learned to reach God through poetry, I have learned to have things I want, as if God answers prayers faster in poems. I’ve learned to recognize happiness in my poetry, and so poetry has long been the source of my happiness. These are poems that were meant to be written like the normal and childish process of writing poems, writing poems for the sake of writing them, picking themes to write about and ending up with pale poems, but the case changed while writing Carved, it was not only about me writing but about learning a lot of impossible things, becoming spiritually inclined, seeing God, talking to God. Owning things in poetry is spiritual, and this has been the trick to lessen my grief of not having or any kind of grief. Adepoju Isaiah: Beautiful. Few months ago on Twitter, I read a tweep wrote that: "Poets are God's favorite." Perhaps it's because poets are more imaginary than any other person, and imagination is the foundation of the Earth's solid illusion. The imagination is always running wild, ever free, even to where God sits, hopefully in a Kingdom of Gold and Myrrh. The sobriquet of the poetics aside, let's talk about paucity of the motivation to write either by personal family problems, academic impasses, socializing malady, etc. In times like these, how do you confront Writer's Block? Zakiyya Dzukogi: I’m starting to disbelieve in writer’s block, sometimes it’s a way of covering up for one’s laziness. I go months without giving birth to a poem maybe because I feel lazy, or I don’t have time or even because of any other reason. If this happens, I don’t write, I give myself break until the spirit is back in my body. This is so because I don’t want to force lines into becoming poems which turns out to look not-a-poem at the end of the day. It’s like forcing a child to do something, in the end, he does it wrongly because he never wanted to do it, same with poems. Writer’s block is what I don’t experience. Adepoju Isaiah: The matter of essentiality creeps in; for rejuvenation to take place, I think dormancy is essential. Recuperation too is essential. Just as Soyinka in an interview after winning the Nobel Laureate said he's a lazy writer, and how much it took him to write even the award-winning play; Death and the King's Horseman. For me too, I think writing is a process wherein like coitus, there's foreplay, penetration and climax. In respect to this, how long does it take you to create a poem? Mention your unsuccessful poems that you spent so much time in creating. Zakiyya Dzukogi: It takes me a while, sometimes at that instance, sometimes it takes me a week or even a month to complete a poem, sometimes I leave my poems incomplete and most times I keep lines and stanzas that are just there, not yet gathered. In all honesty, I spend a lot of time creating a single poem. Poems like 'I Cannot Paint' published in the INNSAEI Journal took me a whole month. I started writing a poem in the ending of last year titled Other gods Of Corners, and completed it last week, I have a poem titled The Poetry Of God, that poem lasted for almost a week to be completed. And many others. Adepoju Isaiah: Decades in retrospect, a poetry collection published by Northerners was titled: "Voices from the Desert", where the foreword says the publication of it is a way to invalidate the insubstantial claim that the North of Nigeria is a desert of literary activities; do you see your book CARVED as a verifier of that claim that the North isn't a desert after all? Simply: recent books from the North of Nigeria is a bulwark against the claim that there's no literary movements in the North. Do you see your book CARVED as part of that movement of bastion against the North? Zakiyya Dzukogi: My poetry is controlled by the curiosity to meet God, the anxiety to know what dying feels like, the fear of dying. I get my motivations mostly on these terms. I’ve fallen in love with death. I’ve died many times in my poetry going against nature, yet I feel unsatisfied. Meeting God is what I’ve been wishing for and so poetry has allowed me to meet Him. I’ve explored in eschatology in my poetry, I don’t mind if the low depth and spiritualism of my type of poetry slowly pushes me into what I’ve given more focus on, death. With or without my consent, death shall drag me to where God stands along with her. I enjoy the idea. This type of poetry has led me closer to God. As for the second question; the first early writers of Nigeria, the likes of Usman Danfodio Of Sokoto, his daughter, Nana Asma’u were northerners. This notion about Northern Nigerians not participating in the literary space is old. Nobody says that about the North anymore because books are now coming out from the North. For instance, take a look at how the Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation is producing teen authors. As a matter of fact, the North competes with any other region in Nigeria in terms of literary productions. I’m a northerner, so my book, Carved is an automatic addition to that movement, not just in the North, but also in Nigeria too. Adepoju Isaiah: What literary pilgrimage have you gone on? I mean quests, or periods of isolation where the academia doesn't as much amuse you except the ability to profuse your emotions, or the experiment of the aesthetics on paper? A perpetual longing that has become a ritual. Zakiyya Dzukogi: I’ve always been moody for my lines to get along, perhaps my type of poetry needs that. Most of my poems go through a sense of direction by my mood to be completed. Maybe that’s why I consume a lot of time to make a single poem. It’s true that giving a poem life is not at all easy, it is either you are sleeping off in your imaginations trying to feed a poem plenty imageries and metaphors or it’s you doing it unconsciously. To get my poem together, I let myself in a special kind of state for me to somewhat appreciate that art, with the help of a serene environment and the dark night, my poems are helplessly completed. Writing late at nights is one of my rituals of writing poems, I feel the night gives so much comfort to the way my poetry sits. Many times when I write and I don’t feel the depth of the poem, if the poem is not in line with my current emotions and if I cannot help it, i keep the poem for another day. Adepoju Isaiah: My Book of Poems; you talked about family. The poems portray how much you are connected with family, how much Saddiq Dzukogi, now acclaimed Poet, inspires you. In CARVED, I realized there's no poem that condescends on Family. Rather an exploration of a beyond that is closer to God. From the title Winters and Summers, should we expect something about differentiating aspects in nature? Zakiyya Dzukogi: My dad got me a poetry teacher, Paul Liam at the age of 8, to strengthen the meaning of poetry on top of my soul and to help with the foundation. After that coach, I gathered 30 poems suitable for publication. My dad published the book when I was 10 years old. The Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation encourages teen authors, so at that age, I got full support of the members, my family, and even my school because I remember the college buying hundred copies of my book for its students. I am happy to have written those books. The truth is, my first collection has always made me feel like I’ve insulted the holiness of poetry. Before now, I felt the poems could be a lot better than what they are, but it is better that they are what they are. While Carved is a brief biography on the changes in me after meeting poetry again, I felt re-carved into a finer artist after my first collection. My latest chapbook, Winters and Summers which won 1st in this year’s (2021) Nigeria Prize for Teen Authors appear to have confirmed that feeling. This means with every collection, a poet should ascend higher to the poetic realm. As a child, your mind is yet to be opened to different type of things, of ideas. Perhaps the innocent persona in my first collection noticed nothing then but the importance of family and the things she saw around her at that time. While in Carved, growth creeped in. With growth, mindset and ideologies changes. Maybe that’s why there is no family themed poems in the book or perhaps the relationship with God has somehow linked it to family. Winters and Summers in my assumption is a deeper version of Carved, talking of God, heaven, death, hell, God, God and God. Adepoju Isaiah: Good then, I would wait right on to devour the philosophical cartilage of the intrinsic existence of the physical and the metaphysical. Zakiyya Dzukogi: Thank you. Adepoju Isaiah: Let's deviate a little to what I would like to call: Literary Postmodernism, wherein laid down belief about literary theories are being objected. Then to some poets who label themselves, or wants to, as African Literary Postmodernist. Winters and Summers, your manuscript that won the 2021 Nigeria Prize for Teen Authors (Poetry) had been garnering brimming opposition on the instance that even the title, and prognosticatedly the contents of the manuscript were UnAfrican, or rather less African. Has the topic of Africanity bothered you in your choice for the title of the manuscript or in choice of imageries? Zakiyya Dzukogi: Poetry is universal so it doesn’t bother me, it has never bothered me even while deciding the title. The poems are African. We’re not neglecting the African culture because we use non-African symbols in our writings, it’s not even constant nor continuous, it’s incidental - to enjoy the fun inside writing. It is another thing to contribute to the growth and development of the African culture as African writers. Using non-African imageries to define your piece of art is not wrong nor is it a way of not contributing to the society as an African. There is no big deal if an African writer uses non-African terms to depict what he or she wants to convey, sometimes it’s just symbolism, sometimes style. Concerning this, I find no fault in African writers who enjoy using words like “winters” in their works even without any experience of it, to allow their imaginations soar, maybe that’s their own preference at that time. It is not wrong too for a non African to use African terms in writing poems and stories. There is total freedom in writing. Adepoju Isaiah: Tell us about something you're working on presently. Zakiyya Dzukogi: Right now, I’m not working on anything. Adepoju Isaiah: Thanks Miss Zakiyya for your time. Zakiyya Dzukogi: My pleasure To dissect African poetry from its Unafrican counterpart is delicate, and even until the moment of writing this article, I would have thought it was impossible. So to attempt this, these discourse, it is a matter of common sense to tackle it from the retrospective scope; the time I believe there really are notable differences between them. The first poem to review then is Eye Of The Earth by Niyi Osundare, the joint-winner of Common Wealth Poetry Prize 1986 and winner of the 1986 Association Of Nigeria Authors’ poetry prize.
And I really was impressed by its African vitality and infectious enjoyment with words. Now, the main subject of this discourse is not to devalue the so called ‘modern African’ poetry but simply to state unequivocally the derailment, or impending derailments, of what makes African poetry ‘African’. To get the scopes of what I refer to African poetry, I must quote its metaphorical philosophy: “It [Negritude] aims amongst other things to reassert and revive, through literature, the cultural values, identity and authenticity of Africans, and to extol the ancestral glories and the beauty of Africa, partly through a RENUNCIATION of WHAT IS WESTERN and PARTLY through a RE-ORDERING of IMAGERY”1. The main aim of Negritude is to insert, or reassert, the efficacy of Africa and its values in the world. It is a form of resistance sparked by the zeal to sustain one’s dignity and pride in the face of overwhelming numbers of opposition – the fame of westernization for example, and other foreign philosophies which are unrelated with, or to, African. But that is not the bleak story; the bleak story is the neglect, or rather preferably, in aspect of dictum, relegation or the classification of the ‘old’ poets from Africa as archaic, which makes their subject theme irrelevant, lackadaisical to the now prevalent themes in this ‘modern’ Africa. And it is sad that this is the conclusion I’ve come to, not by my own volition but by the evidence of the literary works, especially poetry, I see around me, in the intellectual domain, which to state in litotes are the LGTBQIA, feminists, misogynists, and etcetera. What the ‘old’ poets of the past fought against was colonialism, and the further perpetration of the African values by the colonialists’ culture. But, according to a reply I got on Facebook, why should we stop preaching Africanism when the once physical colonialists’ ideals and way of life had metamorphose into mental captivity? A celebrated captivity. A proud chains even. And that is the basis of my admiration of Soyinkaism on religion; religion has classified some of our African culture and custom as bad in a primitive way. Like the misrepresentation of Esu as Satan, the Jewish evil god. And several other gods in Yoruba myths as devilish, thereby making them unpracticable. detrimental to humanity. This is just a mere deviation, a mere elucidation of one of the several values which leads to the neglect of African values, of neglecting the African poetry with its theme, subject, mood and language. The reasons for this subtle neglect – even though have taken their non-conform to a peak, to making it conspicuous, to say Ohh… the environment I’m in dictates to me Westernization than Africanization. Or it’s because I read more of Fantasies – but, thank God, Nnedi Okorafor has been labeled a writer of African fantasies; are, the relegations of African morals and customs. Now, speaking of African morals and customs, the question of health-for humanity arises, whether the sacrifices, both humans and animals, in each African tribe is healthy. No! It is not. It is not healthy, but as we strive for the growth of this ‘modern’ society, isn’t that how we should strive to blow the chaff from the wheat and not dispose of the wheat and the chaff, raising our famished lips to a wanderer-bird with strips of bread. Below, I’ve put forward two short poems. While the general reader might think the point of this discourse is singularly identifying native words as the symbol of native works, poetry, these examples will definitely prove him wrong, because writing African poetry is not a leisurely activity, it is the experiment of deep-rooted knowledge into lines. Our knowledge inevitably is subtly noticed by the general reader, while conspicuously outlined by the critical reader – which is why understanding Africa and what it entails is a compulsory obligation for the common African man. Note: these poems, I will tag them ‘Poem A’ and ‘Poem B’, while ‘Poem A’ is an example of the European, and ‘Poem B’ is an example of the African. POEM A Here, dead chrysanthemums grow backwards Into Mother’s scars – names of places she’s lived; Infants she had quietly tucked to bed, Where their mothers hold their breath. POEM B Nibbled camwood in adieu, regal with staid steps Water skittering barkwards into scraggy sockets – Faithful old-age bearers; Headless infants, in indigo-colored dust, in hollow sarcophagus. I am going to give a review of these poems, POEM A and POEM B, and to the reader, I would give the freewill to dissect the Africanness and Unafricanness in them. Chrysanthemums sometimes called mums or chrysanths are flowering plants of the genus Chrysanthemum in the family Asteraceae. They are native to East Asia and Northeastern Europe. As an avid reader, for me to understand how effective chrysanthemums are, or how they look, react to deadness, would take some certain time of fruitlessness. It would have been better if a poet from China or any of the countries in East Asia or North eastern Europe to write about the dead chrysanthemum and if done masterfully, I would have felt the same way the poet had felt about the flower, how much it represents different thing entirely to his/her mind. But an African who’s never seen such flower writing about it is a sham, mostly leading to misrepresentation in his poem or craft. The same with the style in POEM A; I class styles as that as foreign, Unafrican at least. Before being called a sectionalist, I would highlight how African poetry or what seems to be recognized and revered by it sprouted up; it was through ballads. Oral songs. Night tales. Hunting escapade. Myths… etc. and even though British Imperialist system might have eliminated the better parts of it, the way out would be to follow the steps of our forebears whose work was to ‘re-order their imaginations’. And that was part of the exceptional quality of Nigeria, et African, frontiers of poetry composition, Christopher Okigbo, a poet presumed to be so complex that “Africa cannot afford too many Okigbos… cannot afford too many verisifiers whose poems are untranslatable and whose genius lies in imagery and music rather than conversational meaning”2 Even though Dan Izeubaye has well tackled it in a journal3 yet for clarity on the generalized perspective on complexity as a major tool in the composition of Africa’s poetry (even though Joseph Kariuku and others proved otherwise); complexity is not a ‘major’ tool, it rather is the force behind Africa’s poetry – kindly take note the difference between complex dictum and poetry complexity which is Abstract Verse3 In the then South Africa, when her cultural pride was subdued and her arts and its preachers were sent on exile, the book which rejuvenated her cultural values, through the arts, was the book, Black Poets In South Africa which was formerly titled ‘To Whom It May Concern’ published in 1973. In the introductory part, Page 7, this is what the editor, Robert Royston, had to say about the poets in the anthology: “[Their] jauntily colloquial and aggressive [rigid] use of language alone reveals a self that feels confidant to order its world and its experience as it thinks best”4 *** As already discussed, one of the features which separates POEM A from being classified as African is its lack of rhythm and its mention of chrysanthemum, an untypical plant which is modern, strange, to Africa. *** Having settled the point of complexity and the analyzing of the first poem, POEM A, it is now safer to move to the analyzing of the second poem, POEM B. Analyzing the second poem requires understanding, of the poet, of what he seeks to achieve, of his relationship with his craft. To understand, I have to take out words which I believe are notable, related to African. CAMWOOD: An African hardwood tree, baphia nitida, which is a form of sandalwood INDIGO: A blue dye obtained from certain plants (the indigo plant woad), or a similar synthetic dye OLD-AGE BEARERS. The terms are related to the African culture, or perspective. And this similarity in its Africanness will process the mood into the reader. And reading cannot be fully understood if you are hesitating to garner knowledge about the Yoruba culture, African, in whose infallible spirit the muse for the poem had sprang up. Poetry, if done well, will not only invite the reader to the reality to which the poet dines, it would also tell him to wash in the cool spring and set to the bounty of the game. What I have done is write about a rite of passage for the infants, on promenade ground, but mere reading, and even understanding, I’ve given the reader the choice to relate the poem to whatever events he would, but not until he begins to intertwine with my African beliefs, he would always be one-step farther from understanding my reaction to the theme of the poem. The first line signifies a rite of passage, a procession, which as the poet, I’ve intentionally concealed to be the promenade grounds, but which a Yoruba indigene could easily relate with that ritual such as tossing infants back to the other realm has to be on the shore of the ocean. The second line is my imagery of the widows of these infants, weeping, standing aside. I unveiled as mothers in the third line, which afterwards I will explain how the grammatical meaning collides with understanding the Yoruba custom; the African custom. The third line unveils the infants as victims of brutal circumstances, ‘headless’, clasped in hollow sarcophagus. More like coffins built for infants that look like pods of groundnuts. Indigo is related to most African rituals, and in the last line, I’d ‘re-imagined’ it to be a souvenir for the rite of passage. Almost as dwellers trapped in the gulf of transition. Camwood symbolizes the spirits of these dead infants, in stealth procession of the rite of passage. In Yorubaland, and even some African culture, it is believed that every dead person will dance to meet his ancestors5. While Old-Age bearers signify two things: Palm trees and mothers. In Yoruba antics, it is believed that palm trees were once mothers and still are, witches, which in Yoruba are appraised Iya mi Aje, Aro’gbaso mo bale, and they are seen as the pillars of the world. But in this poem, POEM B, I’ve used them as mothers. Now, how do you feel? How would a non-african feel about analyzing an African poem? After this elucidation, won’t the general reader feel drawn to the African root? Won’t the reader smell Africa, the rich fervor clasped in her soil? This poem is produced by the author of this article, ADEPOJU Isaiah Gbenga, which means that this specimen is not the best there could be; it may not even level up to the top hundreds. But imagining reading something better than POEM B is even a blessing, an African blessing. The deal is to peak the Unafrican to search for knowledge in the shallow grounds, and hills, of Africa. And to remind to the core the African reader the authenticity in Africa and her poetry. Snow does not fall in Africa; the Africans’ imagination shouldn’t let it, lest it brings to naught the pride of Africa. I will close this article with TS Eliot’s words: The African struggles against HERESIES is “to concentrate, not to dissipate; to renew our association with traditional wisdom; to re-establish a vital connection between the individual and the race”6 REFERENCES 1). – A Selection of African Poetry – introduced and annotated by K.E Senanu & T. Vincent. Page 23 ©Longman Group Ltd. 1976 ISBN – 0 582 60141 2). Professor Mazrui Ali A. “Meaning Versus Imagery In African Poetry”, Présence Africaine, No 66, 2nd Quarterly 1968. Ibid P. 57 3). –– Critical Evaluation Of African Literature – From Reality To The Dream: Christopher Okigbo [Dan Izeubaye] Page 123 © 1973 Edited By Edgar Wright Defines Abstract Verse As Verse which Is Unintelligible Because It Is Imagistic Rather Than ‘Coversational’. 4). Black Poets In South Africa; Introduction by Robert Royston: Page 7 © 1973 5). Foreword, Death And The Kings’ Horseman, By Wole Soyinka, For My Father Who Lately Danced And Joined The Ancestors. 6). Ts Eliot, After Strange Gods: A Primer Of Modern Heresies (Faber, London, 1934) P. 48 John Chizoba Vincent become the names of three people who deliberately see through each other. Sometimes, they are at war with each other ,and at times, they are the ties that never got broken. They: Them: Us: We represent Boys and their Anatomies, Men and their vulnerabilities, and Humans and their imperfections. Between them are rosy track roads that are rough and tough. They live in a lonely room in Lagos, Nigeria. They have been published widely in online magazines and offline magazines. They are the founder of Philm Republic Pictures and Co-founder, Boys Are Not Stones Initiative; an organization that upholds the love for the BoyChild. Staff writer Isaiah Adepoju interviewed him about his work and his thoughts. Isaiah Adepoju: Good day Sir. John Vincent: Good day, Mr. Adepoju Isaiah Adepoju: You are the convener of "Boys Are Not Stone", an extraordinary voice emerging from Africa's theater and Creative sector in its aspect of providing an avenue for boys who are victims of Hegemonic masculinity to speak out their scars and its enormity. We, the audience, have been expecting this anthology to be out soon which promises to be groundbreaking, so I wish to ask what inspired this giant leap? John Vincent: We are humans. We are fallible. Be it male or female gender, we all have our shortcomings and weeknesses. Girls got raped and molested; and boys got molested and abused too, but the problem is that the society tends to pay more attention to female abuse and molestation than the male gender. When it comes to rape, molestation, abuse and others, we talk more of the female molestation, harassment and abuse forgetting that there are boys who are also abused by their parents, aunties, uncles, priests and others, sexually or emotionally. I started boys are not stones In 2018. And what prompted me to start this course was what happened at a Police station. A friend of mine was arrested the night before while he went out to buy something from a shop near our house, and he was arrested by SARS. So, when we were informed of where he was, we went to bail him. On getting there, we were asked to sit in the reception. Then that morning, a young man of twenty or so ran into the police station to report a case of molestation and rape. He said some group of ladies molestated him the night before and one out of them who had been making some advances at him dragged him into a nearby bush and forcefully had unplanned sex with him. The police men on duty then laughed at him and said he has no case against those ladies, that he actually enjoyed the sex with them. And this statement alone made the guy feel ashamed of coming to report. He left covering his face in shame. He looked stupid and rejected as he was leaving the station. I was angry because this was a boy that came to report to the law enforcement agency (police) all what he passed through but he was made mockery of. So, after bailing my friend, Boys are not stones was birthed that afternoon while at home, angry, thinking of the manner by which the police men attended to that case. After some weeks of writing about boys and their plights in our society, especially those experiences nobody knows they pass through, and even others which the society failed to address through my social media, Jamiu Ahmad chatted me up and said we could actually turn those emotions into a book and that was how the first anthology was born. And from 2018 till now, we have had two publications which includes Boys are not stones and Country Of broken Boys. IA: What should we expect in this anthology? Are the judges more focused on the originality or the writing prowess of the submitted works, or what are the criterion for the selection? JV: The team is looking out for works that portray boys in general - their plights, pains, weaknesses, steadfastness and emotional will. We focus on the originality of the works, prowess and the ability of the writer to dig deep into what makes a boy, a boy. Besides, we are digging deeper into the anatomy of boys, men and others. And this is a guideline for anyone that wants to participate. Readers should expect a beautiful journey into the life of the BoyChild and the totality of boyhood. IA: In retrospect and introspect, what changes has happened to the male gender? Do you also believe that the rise of feminism, African or Western, has lifted burden off their shoulders, as it claims it has, subtly or conspicuously? JV: Nothing changes. A change to one man is not a change to all. The same as a change to one woman is not a change to all women. We still have men who beat their wives, we still have men who take their wives for granted. We still have some men who don't respect their wives and we still have some women who still see men as worthless being because of how they were groomed. We still have women who see men as beasts because their mothers constantly planted those seeds in their ears while they were growing up. To me, nothing has really changed now from what was in the past in as much as the world is changing. We still have women who still see men as the breadwinners of the house and when these men are not able to meet up, they are seen as weak or defeated men. Feminism, African or Western culture has not in anyway lifted any burden off their shoulder rather in some areas it has compounded their plights the more. But like patient preachers, we will keep preaching hoping that some day both men and women will open their eyes to embrace themselves and say, 'no one is better, we are all humans'. ID: Feminism. Femininity. Womanism. Masculinism. Misogynism. LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender). Do you hold grudges for any of these subtly related philosophies, and why? JV: I don't. They are human beings as we are. ID: Following the latest release of the world renown writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's short story, Zikora, do you perceive toxic femininity in the story? And doesn't it serve as an antagonistic force towards the realization of the masculine as not only the known 'predator' but also the prey. A victim. A victim of Hegemonic masculinity, of societal alienation and parental negligence as some sort of African-perceived 'higher' gender? JV: (Smiles) I reserve my opinion on this. ID: Viewing it from the critical lenses, both as a writer, a creative artist, and a cinematographer, who has seen first hand Nigerian theater and literature, have you noticed any movement of literature that effortlessly tries to approach masculinity from the perspective through which you have approached it through the forthcoming publication of "Boys Are Not Stones"? JV: There is a saying that If you make a show of going against the time, flaunting your unconventional ideals and unorthodox ways, people will think that you only want attentions and you look down on them. They will find a way to punish you for making them feel inferior. It is far safer to blend and nurture the common touch. Share your originality only with tolerated friends and those who are sure to appreciate your uniqueness. The fact is, there is no Literary work or any literature that has fought or approached masculinity from the angles which we have taken that I know. In fact, when I started this, I was blocked many times on facebook and other social media apps because many people saw it as madness or rather something that shouldn't be there. Until Jamiu Ahmed joined, then Ebubechukwu Nwagbo, Jaachi Anyatonwu, Maxwell Opia-Enwemuche, and many others joined us to create a stronger voice. Right now, people still make reference to us when it comes to anything about the BoyChild. IA: Do you see Nigeria literature, home and abroad, tackling and expatiating the ideology, in few years to come? JV: Of course, yes. Many people are already working around this. Often times my attention has been called to many write up on facebook about the BoyChild. Some people even shared links of popular posts about the boychild published online journals. Recently, aside Boys Are Not Stones Initiative, there is also two organizations that are pushing behind us. One of them is Boys Matter Too and the other is The BoyChild movement. I think all we need is time. It will definitely get to the mainstream media and gets more acceptance in the Nigeria literature. Right now, there is a book I am reading which is about the BoyChild. I think the title is: For Coloured Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Still Not Enough edited by Keith Boykin. This book is mostly about the plights of the Boychild. IA: Looking at the future in its grown physique and enormity and stealing a gaze at the lean past when we were necessary victims of this African style of parenting, do you see the gargantuan faultiness in this parenting style? And how do you propose we change and make it better? JV: The fact is, you cannot teach a mother how to train her child. To some extent there is no school of thought that has the laydown rules, formats, principles or policies on how a child should be trained. Meanwhile, you cannot fault a parent in whatever ways she chooses to train her child, hence I always believe that no parent should be blamed on the upbringing of a child. Why do i have this Believe? This is why. There is a particular time/age that a parent cannot control her/his child any more. And I believe by this age, the child should have known what is good and bad and the way he should live his life. Remember these people are just our guidance, they are not us. They may have given birth to us but they don't have a say in our lives. We are life Longing for its own and we are responsible for our life and we must own it. So, no matter how bad or good a parent must have trained his or her child, the child has the right to re-train himself and go after what he wants in life. So, as a mother or a father, the only thing that is desirable of her/him is to show her child the right way to life and what life entails. Every one has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is the usual insecurities, an uncontrollable emotion or need; It can be a small secret pleasure. Either way, once found, it is a thumbscrew you can turn to your advantage. IA: Where do you see the movement you have so humbly started and the involvement of the Nigeria, Africa, and world literature about the men's victimization, in the next ten years? JV: (Smiles) World wide. I see it already taken it own shape even when I am not there to attend to it. In the next ten years, I see a body that cater for the Boychild. An organization that fight for the uplifting of the Boychild and giving them hope to live for who they are and what they plan to be in the future. I see an Organization that defend the BoyChild in all his plights and giving them a shoulder to lean on. IA: Do you see this ideology thriving here, in the African continent and by the extension of its richness to the world at large? JV: Yes. It will definitely thrive here and beyond. Many boys are already picking interest, coming out to say what they passed through in the hands of their maidens, aunties, uncles, priests and big mommies as boys left in their mercy to take care of. There was a day a boy from London sent me a message on my messenger about the abuse he received while growing up in the house of his Aunt in East London. To be honest with you, this is happening everywhere, every day. This is happening and these people that it is happening to are either shy to talk about it or they don't have someone they can rely on or they don't have channels through which they can relate their experiences to. Girls got molested and abused; and boys got molested and abused too. Relatively, it happens everyday in our houses, streets and compound where we live in. Honestly speaking, it will thrive. Every new thing takes time to settle well with people. We strongly believe that it will be a success because we don't venture into something that is fruitless. IA: And onto the last question: can you tip us about some of your plans in ensuring that 'badness' is in equal proportion levelled on both genders, without prejudice nor favoritism? JV: We are working to create initiatives that would cater for humanity (Boys and girls, women and men alike.). A girl can walk in and be treated as a boy was treated and a man can walk in and be taught as a woman was taught. And when these initiatives take shape, we will have no option than to see that our services are for Humanity and not for genders, not for boys and girls but for Humanity, just humanity. There is a foundation we are hoping and planning to establish soonest. And one of the objectives of this foundation is services to humanity. Like what I have always said, all I wanted is a balanced society where girls and boys can be treated equally and not based on who they are; a Boy or a girl but humans. We need a society where a boy can be seen as a human he is; and should be able to show his weaknesses and flaws without being mocked. He can also be allowed to weep when necessary and this would not in anyway make him a lesser boy. And a girl also could be seen as a girl and a human she is and can be able to cry and be taken care of. In as much as balanced is seen as an Illusion by many, it is still achievable. |