Nigerian poet starts reading before the word

Nigerian poet Niyi Osundare, going second in a poetry double header with Francis Coke at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts, UWI, Mona, on Sunday morning, started his reading before the word.

For while in the Christian tradition the word is in the beginning, Osundare explained that the Yoruba believe that in the beginning was not the word; "The word is an egg. If you break you have to be careful how you pronounce it." So he started his first poem in his multi-book reading with "in the beginning was not the word/the word was the beginning."

Osundare had explained that he normally delivers his poetry with music and there were identifiable refrains throughout many of the pieces he read to the sparse, appreciative audience. He defined the word from several angles in that opening poem, saying "The word is life/the word is death/the word is life and death," before closing as he had begun.

Stubborn believer

The professor of English at the University of New Orleans, USA, who counts the Tchicaya U Tamsi Award for African Poetry among his numerous accolades, wove his personal experiences as well as a bit of the classroom into his reading. "I am a stubborn believer in the goodness of literature," he said, explaining how his father eventually explained the ornate carvings on a pillar supporting a roof to him. "The eye must eat first," Osundare said his father told him, before reading I Want to Touch the World, in which he sang, the first of many segues into outright melody.

And he went to his harrowing Hurricane Katrina experience where he spent two days in an attic with his wife (the second day the temperature went up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit). Then a neighbour came and they were moved from shelter to shelter. "We never saw the American government. We went from one centre to the other. But we saw the American people," Osundare said before reading People Are My Clothes, based on a Yoruba proverb, one line saying "Let people be my robe as the savannah grass surrounds the deer."

Questions for a Poet's Wife (which Osundare said could be turned around to read Questions for a Poet's Husband) probed the experience of a person wed to a creative writer. Again this poem was filled with humour ("Does he talk to himself and nod in agreement?"); so was Days, a beautiful look at the orderliness of the week ("I have never heard Thursday grudging Wednesday for its urn of ashes) and ended "none has ever burdened the world with the myth of a jealous god".

He closed with music, both in the preamble where he spoke about Jimmy Cliff, and the poem, which he ended singing Amen, encouraging all to join in, which they did.

- MC