Happy 86th Birthday to Wole Soyinka
Happy birthday to Africa's Literary Legend, a rare breed with poetic prowess. Right from my teenage years Wole Soyinka's work fascinates me. The eloquence of his words and phrases always me leave me in awe.
In 2018, my poem 'Wole Soyinka' was featured in the '84 Bottles of Wine Anthology', and on this auspicious day I share this poem to celebrate this Literature god.
Wole SOYINKA
Today I saw the sage
The son of S.A, Essay
From the hills of Abeokuta
The learned writer with wisdom on his head
The one who wrote the trials of brother Jero
The philosopher who critiqued Senghor’s Negritude
In the Lion and the Jewel
His Emergency was a Great Invention
The dramatist of the Strong Breed
Where in Idanre he saw Kongi’s harvest
And in confinement, found the Detainee
Before the Blackout
I heard the revolutionary’s speech
About Bacchae of Euripides
Poetic renditions of Poems from Prison
This teacher that scribbled
A Shuttle in the crypt
And Madmen and Specialists
Who produced Murderous Angels
About the Life of the Man Died
I marveled at Soyinka’s play
The Dance a play for the forests
Of Keffi’s Birthday Treat
On my Father’s Burden
Of Opera Wonyosi
By Sixty Six
In The Swamp Dwellers
A quality of violence
On The Road
Did you know he wrote prose too?
The Interpreters
Told A Tale of Two
About Egbe’s Sworn Enemy
In Madame Etienne’s Establishment
The Season of Anomy
Apart from The Camwood on the leaves
And Jero’s Metarmorphosis
This sagacious scientist of performances
His collected Plays in Volume ii
The Death and the King’s Horsemen
The magic of Ogun Abibiman
The mystic on Myth, Literature and the African World
His story on Ake: The years of childhood
His musical composition in harmony
A Requiem for a Futourologist
A melody for I Love my Country
This veteran that made films
Blues for a prodigal a play of Giants
He wrote poems for great men
Mandela Earth and other poems
A rational man of the pen
Of Essays on literature and culture
On Art, Dialogue and Outrage
His Inspirational prose
Isara; A voyage around essay
Announced intellectual satire
With a Scourge of Hyacinths
Came Zia with Love
I admired the metallic grey of his hair
A beatification of Area Boy
This satirist exposed
The Open Sore of a Continent
In a Personal narrative of the Nigerian Crisis
I heard the poet speak of Outsiders
On the Document of Identity
The scenes in King Baabu
And the free verses in Samarkand
and other Markets I have Known
The pages of You must set forth at Dawn
This compassionate writer of words
From Chibok with Love
For Childe Internationale
With acts from Etiki Revu Wetin
And Alapata Alapata
I met this phenomenal Author
Not in The Forest of a Thousand Demons
But in The Forest of Olodumare
Where there is no New Imperialism
Of Africa
With The Burden of Memory- The Muse of Forgiveness
A Climate of Fear
By The Blackman and the Veil
In The Credo of Being and Nothingness
From Drama and the African Worldview
A Neo-Tarzanism; which became
The Poetics of Pseudo Transition
I discovered A Voice That Would Not Be Silenced
All Sixty Six arts of Wole Soyinka
© Francisca Ogechi Okwulehie. 30 May 2018
Comments
Post a Comment