What is clear from the glitterer's reading of Kola Eke's poetry, as manifested in 1967 and Other Poems, is that life should be a work of poetry—meaning that life should be a work of art. Of course, he does not deliberately make a universal claim in this respect. His poetry is Modern Nigerian Poetry. His art is Modern Nigerian Art of a remarkable, amazing poetic rendition that gives Nigeria and living Nigerians prognostic value.
The Seeds of the Future in Present Actions
The glitterer correctly affirms and identifies the seeds of the future in the actions of the present. He sees from his investigation that there is a valid reason for believing that Kola Eke possesses the fertile imagination to render his formula or equipment for living Nigerian citizens in a manner suggesting that he understands perfectly the revolutionary demands in the supreme politics of poetry.
Other modern Nigerian poets fit this exact description. Poets such as Romanus Egudu, Olu Obafemi, Niyi Osundare, Tanure Ojaide, Odia Ofeimun, Okinba Launko, Tony Afejuku, Idris Amali, Akachi Ezeigbo, and others belong here in different degrees. These are his far seniors and elders in the art of writing, whose works he read and studied diligently as he prepared himself for his poetic taste and art. This is not an assumption but based on solid evidence.
Moral Revolution and Political Rebellion
Kola Eke studied properly the respective methods of the listed poets who, in varying degrees, are morally revolutionary, revolutionarily moral, politically rebellious, and rebelliously political. They are highly sensitive moral creators committed to bringing enormous positive changes to Nigeria despite different semblances of world-weary cynicism spotted in some of their poems. Although these poets are different in their creative methods, they cannot properly be put apart until they have to be first put together.
Kola Eke's equipment in themes and topics may be said to have, intuitively, some tongues of the referenced poets, but he is uniquely different from them. In each of the twelve sections of 1967 and Other Poems, he espouses his sense for catalogued values in which the reader sees moral flaws, ambiguities, lies, deceit, complexity, pain, loss, irony, and the subdued wonder of life itself in Nigeria.
Characters as Equipment for Living Nigerians
The characters who populate his text are designed as equipment for living Nigerians to learn from, in order to overcome their dehumanising fate. Talking about the characters in Kola Eke's poetry reminds the glitterer of Kenneth Burke, who, according to his editor David H. Richter, averred: 'Authors are agents who act within a certain scene (their environment) by means of a certain agency (writing) to achieve a purpose. These five terms—agent, act, scene, agency, and purpose—constitute the Burkean pentad.' The relationships between them offer a framework employed to analyse human motives and actions.
Their application to Kola Eke's poetry as equipment for Nigerians enables readers to appreciate the fruitfulness with which the poet depicts and re-enacts the scene of each poem, where we see characters illustrating typical recurrent situations in Nigeria's social, economic, and political structures.
Analysis of 'The Flight of Cooking Gas'
The poem 'The Flight of Cooking Gas' communicates some of the ideas tendered:
"Like swallows and bats / Prices of cooking gas / Have grown wings / Flying beyond the reach of citizens / Like storks and vultures / Prices of cooking gas / Have developed wings / Not for the ordinary man / Like golden plovers / Equipped with wings / Migrating and migrated / Beyond the poor / Like kites / Armed with wings / Flying across the sky / Not for the middle class / Migrating journeys of / Cooking gas / Triggered by the / Sadistic tax in importation / Obnoxious flights of / Cooking gas / Manured by the / Imposition of VAT / And the people / Trying to resurrect / Use of firewood for / Daily cooking needs / A pleasant plea / To our leaders / Break the wings / Cancel the flight of cooking gas."
This is a sumptuously plain and un-plain poem that depicts the Nigerian situation of cruelty and sabotage—economic, political, and social. The major characters in the poem are the oppressed and exploited poor, and the rich and political leaders—evil, wicked, and mercenary men who do to the poor people and masses as they please. The poet employs proverbial expressions and constructions to admonish and exhort the rich to 'Break the wings / [And] cancel the flight of cooking gas.'
The implication of the symbols is clear. The poet foretells the recipes that will follow and appear in the land if his plea, admonition, and exhortation are not heeded. Easy access to cooking gas will uplift the spirits of the poor, equipping them with the thought and hope of a new day and era when the 'use of firewood for / Daily cooking gas needs' will cease to be. Will this rhetoric sound right to members of the business, aviation, political, and criminal organisations who the poet is equally equipping with his 'pleasant plea' to create new situations of fairness, kindness, and righteousness in the land? Or will they find it gripping in their anxiety?
To be concluded next week. Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.
