By Tony Afejuku
The gleaner-glimpser-glitterer is here set to focus on the writing of Kola Eke of the Department of English and Literature, University of Benin, Benin City. Specifically, his poetry is what is gaining the attention of the gleaner now. And his poetry has beauty, beauty of a different kind – not like that of John Keats, the English Romantic poet of the “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” fame. What kind of beauty does Kola Eke, a Benin indigene and poet, who writes as a patriotic Nigerian poet possess? This shall soon be examined in the column, although not in a lengthy manner because the sole idea is to introduce Kola Eke to our audience who is hearing about him for the first time.
In fact, if no mistake or error is being made or committed now, this is the very first time Kola Eke’s poetry is appearing in a huge national column or Nigerian newspaper or medium – traditional or online; and the appearance is designed as a review, is designed as an informative review, a scholastic informative review. Rightly, or wrongly, the gleaner is characteristically cavalier – as you may see – in his use of the facts available to him in the text he is highlighting to emphasise Kola Eke’s poetic mode.
Now let me state very urgently that I was in some kind of difficulty to choose the right or correct or exact title for this discourse. Initially I thought of this title: “Kola Eke’s subjects and mannerisms in 1967” as his book of poems, which is my primary concern here, bears the title 1967 and Other Poems, his new and latest collection. On a second thought, the gleaner decided to switch to “Kola Eke’s poetry as equipment for living Nigerians” – which is what is before the audience of this column now. Of course, other titles beamed their light and attention to the gleaner-glimpser-glitterer for consideration. But the conflict that was unavoidable had to be resolved, and it has now been resolved.
Why the conflict at all? The gleaner-glimpser who gleaned-glimpsed the text gleanly and glimpsly found that Professor Kola Eke’s 1967 and Other Poems could not (and cannot) be neatly pigeonholed; no reading or interpretation can supply all the answers. A reader and any person, critic or non-critic, who may misread, misjudge or misinterpret the book may not, will not, be deprived of their right to estimate it as they please or deem it.
Kola Eke, as has just been announced to the audience – or, better, as being loudly announced to the audience now – is a Professor and a discerning critic and scholar in the Department of English and Literature, University of Benin. He has written dozens of critical essays especially in the area of modern African poetry, which is his academic specialty. He, however, has been a poet very late in life and very late in his career – as a matter of fact, he became a poet after he officially earned his professorship a few years back. What this means is that he prepared himself for a long time to be a very meritorious poet of unique maturity. 1967 and Other Poems demonstrates this convincingly and glitteringly – as his other earlier works of poetry do.
The volume is divided into the following eleven sections: Poems on Civil War in Nigeria; Poems on Women; Poems Depicting Poverty; Poems on Corruption; Poems on Open Defecation; Poems on Cybercrime; Poems on Good Leadership; Poems on Tyranny; Poems on Politics; Poems on Health Care Delivery; Poems on Religious Crisis; Poems on Banditry. Each section (or division) presents the beautiful picture of Nigeria, his country your country my country our country that is rotten with perfection of rottenness. This is a country, a society, where everything is perfected to the point, to the acme, of incongruity and stench that befit its reputation as a place where all energies are devoted to exquisite rottenness. What a country of rotten beauty or of the beauty of rottenness in all its stark manifestations!
Our vices as a people are extremely extreme. Poverty, hunger, exploitation, oppression are rifely rife in the land. There is widespread pain which induces psychological, economic, political, sociological, and theological poisons of inescapable death within the traumatic consciousness of Nigerians – fellow human beings who are now barely surviving. Kola Eke’s poetry is a study of evil. His attempts to beautify this evil through his employment of symbols that should not hurt the patriotic reader’s mental action and consciousness as he reads poems after poems about the gross motive of selfishness of our political leaders, are, however, frankly and unmistakably undisguised. Kola Eke employs, to boot, proverbs and proverbial expressions peculiar to him to give the reader accounts of what have been but should not have been in the country.
Clearly, his poetry is equipment for living Nigerians of all classes and levels to proclaim the unity of truth and beauty of poetry, of literature, written or unwritten or oral, to re-gain the paradise of their country. How do I define Kola Eke’s poetry? The gleaner-glimpser-glitterer does not wish to be misunderstood. He is not defining – and does not wish – to define it here. But he is making up his mind – in fact, he has made up his mind to define the poet’s poetry elsewhere – unless he changes his poetic and scholarly mind – glitteringly. Kola Eke is his literary ally – as the glitterer’s former good student and erstwhile junior colleague who knows perfectly his poetic and scholastic onions. To be continued. Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.
