Omotoso in Color Me With Words Of My Ancestors

Oluwatosin Omotoso is gradually making a name for herself in African poetry. Her interest in that genre started during her secondary school days.

Then, she was known for chanting the African oral poetry, ‘ewi’, to entertain guests at her school’s social gatherings. Over time, her work has been published on various digital platforms. She aspires to project African poetry to the rest of the world through her poems.

In her Color me with the words of my ancestors, she interrogates the pains and horrors of alienation. In fact, this title poem finds bearing in a range of issues local and global.

Color me with the words of my ancestors officially launched her career as a full-time poet.

It is a poetic conversation with the creative muse and she doesn’t disappoint her readers, as she weaves through the dialogues, the message and the silences of a versaic narrative.

The collection is rich, and dazzling and brings to life imageries that are concrete. It also explores silence and suppression, which is characteristic of African performance poetry.

The 26-page collection forms a good intro to the young woman, who is set on defying the movement of the country’s poetry. The collection, though slim, couldn’t have been timely, as it journeys through tradition, hope, betrayal and loss.

The poems, 24 in all, give the reader a bird’s eye-view of tradition and societal expectations. Each poem, with rich vein, brings to mind, losses emerging from the absence of history.

The collection, with a thematic focus on tradition, a style she adopted long ago, leaves her poetry in flight and motion like the spoken word.

In Tongue Speaks Languages, the poet laments her inability to speak her indigenous language perfectly. While looking at how forces behind her birth have made her unfit in a strange environment, she writes:
My English is perfect.

My pidgin, not so perfect.
My Yoruba feels like
Hot coal pressed upon my tongue
My Ekaro sounds like acre-ore.
And my baoni sounds like bow O’Neil.

It is one of the best poems in the collection and it depicts the thoughts of a typical African child. The poem is lucid and breathes energy. It captures childhood innocence and the thrills of growing up.

In Shipped to the UK, the loneliness of an immigrant is Omotoso’s subject of interrogation. Loneliness looms large and Omotoso repeats the phrase: ‘I left.’

Her narrator laments about life in Europe where everything is strange, where love is lost on the street and the search for money is the ultimate.

She talks about the psychological impact in a rather agonising manner. For emphasis, she uses repetition to fill the ears with collocating words. Her words:
I left for the family;
I left for the street.
I left for all those who answered the family name;
I left for my friends.
I left for my children;
I left because I was different.

In Spit in the Eye, the poet legislates on the consequences of not greeting an elder. Though it is colloquially assumed that salutation is not loved, she deconstructs the effect of such an action. She tells her readers that the consequence is not comforting.

You walk past an elderly,
And your mouth decides to
Go useless.
He looks back at you,
And smile, and fear grips you.
You realise and you run after him.
You kiss the floor as you beg
Like your life depended on it.
Your life does depend on it.
An elderly wears the silk of a god,
And his voice commands
The forces behind life and death.
You beg because of your interview tomorrow,
You don’t want to go in there with
A ‘I do not want this job’ written on your forehead.
You beg because you have a wedding
This weekend. You don’t want
Your bride running into the bosom of another man.

Omotoso has a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Diplomacy as well as a master’s degree in Industrial and Personnel Relations. She went to poetry school and interned with a couple of poets to further her interest in poetry.

Omotoso, author of Words reprinted for the soul and By the river. She lives in Lagos with her family.