THE DISTINGUISHED BARDS

"Letter from South Africa" is Omoseye Bolaji's regular weekly column published in the Nigerian newspaper, True National News. The column comes out every Monday. True National News is circulated all over Nigeria on a weekly basis.

February 22 2010 edition

Letter from South Africa

With Omoseye Bolaji

THE DISTINGUISHED BARDS

“The larger part of the labour of an author in composing his work is critical labour, the labour of sifting, combining, constructing, expunging, correcting, testing: this frightful toil is as much critical as creative”
-TS Eliot (all time great poet)


Years ago, when I was still quite young (but already in secondary school) I inadvertently met Mr. Odia Ofeimun the great Nigerian poet (above). I remember he was in a very amiable mood and talking to the “elders” around (well at least they seemed like elders to we young ones!) He was talking about books, poetry etc – his forte.

In those days we youngsters could not talk amidst elders except we were given “special permission”. But after some time when he was passing me I said to him: “I respect you as a great poet sir. I read some of your poems” I went on to refer to the particular anthology

He was suitably impressed. “You love poetry?”. I told him, honestly that I had already been introduced to good poetry in school and I loved many of them (the poets). It must have been strange to him to see a youngster like me referring to, and quoting the likes of Wole Soyinka, Lenrie Peters, Senghor, Kwesi Brew, Denis Brutus among others.

Mr Ofeimun was very friendly indeed and said something along these lines: “I was lucky to be launched by (Prof) Wole Soyinka who published some of my initial, early poems; the book was published abroad. I think that’s the anthology you saw. Soyinka was good to me and never looked down on me…we writers should help each other. Maybe you’ll publish book(s) of poems one day too,”

I must admit that it was never my burning ambition, even whilst young, to publish poetry! (More of this a bit later one) It was fiction that always fascinated me from infancy. I used to dream of writing lots of short stories and interesting novels. Well at least to some extent my childhood dream in this wise came true in the end!

Nowadays it interests me when it is acknowledged that I have done so much for poetry at grassroots level in South Africa (especially in the Free State) many of my old friends in Nigeria can hardly believe this. “When did you become such a great poetry lover?” they ask. “You did not like this genre so much in school” But the simple truth is that I have always tried to encourage literature at grassroots level wherever I am – and in the neck of the woods here, most writers are enamoured with poetry.

Don’t get me wrong – I am happy that I have helped many people with their poetry, publication of their books of poems etc, but it just happened. I would have preferred to help fiction writers but they are relatively very thin on the ground. Now I am satisfied to see so many poets that have emerged, got books published with my help. The list includes Tanki Phafoli, St George Vis, Job Mzamo, Kgang Motheane, Leslie Tlhabalelo,
among others.

I can not explain the curious fact that most of these writers emerge as poets. I do know that it is rare indeed to see writers of substantial fiction emerging from the grassroots level. In fact over the last 3 years for example I can state that the only veritable young “fiction writer” I discovered was Teboho Masakala (those interested can do some research on this very young man on the internet)

But back to our secondary school days (poetry). Looking back on it, at a very young age (or class) we were introduced to the best poets in Africa at least. I mean poets like Lenrie Peters, Brutus, Soyinka, Kofi Awoonor, etc are world class and we had to learn lots of their work even by heart. Strangely enough my all time favourite poem was actually the simplest in those days– Kwesi Brew’s sarcastic and nigh farcical Lest we should be the last.

Celebrated South African and Nigerian poets include Vonani Bila (a real catalyst for poetry in South Africa), Karen Press, Lebo Mashile, Kogsietsile Keorapetse, Odia Ofeimun, Wole Soyinka himself, and the great Chinua Achebe (though some critics tore his poetry apart!), JP Clark, Kaofela wa Mogogodi.

I have published three small books of poetry and none of them can be regarded as very successful, at least from the critical point of view. Apparently the first one, Snippets (1998) is regarded by most as the best; Reverie (2006) had a mixed reception; one critic calling it “an irritating exercise in self-indulgence”! Perhaps my only satisfaction was that Reverie sold quite well in USA! As for my other book of poems, Poems from Mauritius (2007) whilst it sold reasonably well it was also largely damned by the critics!

But at least African poetry is quite healthy and keeps on growing by leaps and bounds…