By Anote Ajeluorou
LAST week, scholars, academics and
friends gathered at Trenchard Hall of University if Ibadan in the maiden
edition of The Niyi Osundare Poetry Festival 2015. Organisers had said Prof.
Niyi Osundare is a global literary icon, whose poetry is both topical and
polemic and on the side of the suffering masses and visionary as it navigates a
refreshing literary course that benefits from in his folk Yoruba tradition.
At the symposium that followed, Diala presented the lead paper titled
‘Topicality and the Visionary Artist: Preliminary Thoughts on Niyi Osundare’s
Poetry’, where he analyses the poetry of the Ikere-Ekiti-born scholar. But this
was after former Harvard University teacher Prof. Abiola Irele had also
commended the scholarship of Osundare, when he said, “We’re here to celebrate
one of our topnotch writers, whose poetry is very accessible. We hope this
would be continued as well as celebrate other writers. We hope we have
something like this annually in all the universities so we can meet more
regularly, as a sign that we’re creating, writing”.
“Scholarship on the poetry of Osundare continues to privilege the social
and political content of his work, in addition, of course, to his fascinating
appropriation of the techniques of indigenous Yoruba poetry,” Diala notes,
adding that Osundare’s poetry tackles social and political corruption, bad
governance, campaign for ameliorable conditions for ordinary Nigerians and his
concern for poetic art. Diala locates Osundare as The People’s Poet, with the
kind of poetry that is accessible while retaining poetic qualities and also
steeped in Yoruba folk tradition. He further comments, “The poet’s
recollections of the manifold oral resources of the Yoruba poetic heritage are
passionate, and its impact on his conception of poetry as both people-oriented
and performative is decisive”.
Counter-hegemonic discourse, Diala says, is another area where
Osundare’s poetry stands out when he said it contests the authority’s version
of events, especially in his collection Songs
of the Seasons, made up of poems from his newspaper column. In these poems,
Osundare confronts the powers-that-be, but he does this with an eye for the
timelessness of his poetic art.
Diala also situates Osundare in the realm of the humanistic in which he
bestrides the global scale with his poetry where Osundare himself also affirms,
“Humanity is one. My travels around the world have shown me we are more united
than politicians want us to believe”. Diala submits that although Osundare is
concerned about the social and political conditions of his country and deploys
his poetry to wrestle the political actors to do the needful, he’s still a
‘poet’, noting, “Osundare is essentially a poet,
rather than a political activist or even propagandist, wooing language for
memorable and compelling images of transformation. He scours varying realms of
experiences in search of antithetical images of birth, rebirth and regeneration,
on the one hand, and decay, dissolution and death, on the other. His arena is
infinitely larger than the Nigerian politics, even larger than the political”.
A discussant of Diala’s paper, Dr. NIran Malaolu said Osundare is one
academic who did not curry for political power through appointments by joining
the looters, but who remained committed to using his art for the benefit of the
masses in speaking truth to power, a course he said is “dangerous and
difficult, but obviously the path of honour”. Another discussant, Adagboyin, a
literary stylistician, argued that topicality and polemics in Osundare’s poetry
are often hyped more than the enchanting beauty in them. He said, “Topicality
does a great disservice to the beauty in Osundare’s poetry. There’s a conscious
simulation of the content with the stylistics. Osundare is a stylistician; as a
very conscious artist, he needs to pay attention to that aspect of beauty, the
unity of the content and the aesthetics. It’s as if the page is the canvas on
which Osundare paints his ideas”.
Olorunyomi also stated that Osundare’s use of the oral tradition in his
poetry is “not a cheap transfer of the oral to the written, but allowing all
senses to feel; it’s hyper-textual. The use of traditional motifs is turned into
something extraordinary, the familiar and the distant. In his counter-hegemonic
discourse, Osundare is critical and creative at the same time. But is the
counter-hegemonic era over? I’m not sure”.
In closing, Osundare read another poem from his City Without People collection in which he paid homage to all those
who reached out to him in fellowship and sympathy shortly after the Hurricane
Katrina tragedy and sent him relief materials like clothes and cash. He
particularly recalled late Chinua Achebe’s memorable words of comfort, “What
the storm took away friendship will restore”.
In a sense, The Niyi Osundare International Poetry Festival 2015 is part
continuation of that restoration borne of friendship! Already, keynote speaker,
Prof. Na’Allah has challenged the organisers to consider his institution, Kwara
State University, Malette as host of the festival next year. He said although
Ibadan was Osundare’s base, the acclaimed scholar was a citizen of the world
and everyone should be allowed to have a share of his scholarship which the
festival connoted.
Akeem Lasisi and Edaoto performed to bring the festival to a close.
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