Femi Osofisan may not share my contention or feeling in this wise – and I don’t expect him to, but let me add with some spectacular enthusiasm that I am delighted to write him unquestionably, but with modesty, into the canon of any of our currently living poets of his birth-age or of around his birth-age whose poetry flourishes as that of a predecessor and as that of a contemporary at the same time.

How many of our critics will agree with me? And how many of our young or younger poets will be tempted to echo my perspective in terms of where specifically we can place Femi Osofisan or limit him to generation-wise?

A young – or a younger – Nigerian poet and scholar, Owojecho Omoha, who, among others, chooses to admire what I write and do, after reading the first part of the essay last week, sent me the following message (among other things he talked about): “Now, your apprehension, that is, your worries, where to place erudite Femi Osofisan. The apprehension leads nowhere, but here and now.

“Osofisan belongs to the fourth generation of Nigerian poets. Poetry is not the drama that he co-founded. TA, you were there before Osofisan, I was poetically born far back in 1988 with Ogaga Ifowodo, Uche Nduka, Olu Oguigbe and others, in Harry Garuba’s Voices From the Fringe. Generations are born; Osofisan’s poetic birth has just been announced.”

Do I agree with this wholly smart young and younger poet and scholar of the University of Abuja that (among other observations of his) “Osofisan’s poetic birth has just been announced”? The answer is an obvious capital NO. Professor Osofisan’s Remember Tenderness and The Jeweller of the Night (Volume 1 and Volume 2), which, as already said, contain his old, selected, and new poems, are unquestionably collections of a well-languaged master, of a well-languaged highmaster, whose subjects defy – or are not limited to – generations. In any case, the selected poems – a good number of the selected poems – pre-dated several of Osofisan’s plays. His draw-back, so to say, I think, can be attributed –and I am attributing it – to the fact that Femi Osofisan gave thought to himself more as a playwright and dramatist than to himself as a poet – when he began his creative and writing career – who looked forward to artistic accomplishment.

If his reputation did not soar as a poet, or if he did not carry himself as a poet, it was because he cared more for drama than for his own image or reputation as a poet. Maybe he was determinedly following the artistic footsteps of Wole Soyinka – his and our creative egbon for all seasons, and for all generations – as Achebe, and JP Clark also emerge in our bouncing imaginations.

Thus I am leading myself to say that like Soyinka, specifically, Femi Osofisan, as a practitioner of poetry of all kinds – as I shall demonstrate when the inspiration descends on me shortly to look at some poems in the volumes, the outstandingly well-languaged poet maintains the pose of a contemporary humanist indignant at the follies of our age and clime. And “the follies of our age and clime” are the follies of our generation (and of those before ours).

Let me not give the impression that I am in absolute disagreement with Owojecho Omoha (and anyone who shares or may share his belief, grounds or no grounds). Let me also not give the impression that I am not in control of my thought – as per what I set out as my undertaking here – and as per the question I posed relating to the actual generation Femi Osofisan belongs to – or as we may apportion or appoint him – as a poet.

What are the accurate generations of poetry in our clime and age? If, as Owojecho Omoha claims, we already have up to four generations (he claims our subject belongs to the fourth generation, as already alluded to above), what is the true or correct number of the generations of Nigerian poetry, given the fact that younger poets, many of them unknown, are still writing?

More significantly, what is the span of years each generation covers – or seems to cover? Besides, I must note, strongly, that the birth-age of a poet should not be considered in any discussion or attempt to limit the work, especially the best work – even if it is a poem – of a/the poet to a particular generation.

We should perhaps examine the flavours of the inspirations that led or gingered Osofisan and poets such as Niyi Osundare, Tanure Ojaide, Romanus Egudu, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ossie Onuora Enekwe, Odia Ofeimun, Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Olu Obafemi, Amatoritsero (Godwin) Ede, Abdul Rasheed Yesufu, Maik Nwosu, Yusuf Adamu, Mabel Evwierhoma, Akachi Ezeigbo, Amaechi Nicholas Akwanya, Owojecho Omoha, Kola Eke, Clement Eleghosa Odia and others- other gems of our creative literature, to write what they wrote – or have/had written in their early years or ages, and, as the case may be, towards their middle and old ages. In the context of my argument they definitely do not belong to the same age-bracket(s), but their respective pre-occupancies in varying degrees unite them – even though they do not employ the same style or technique or approach in their craft, or write/wrote with the same intensity, emotions and maturity – even as they wax/waxed elderly amid the throng of their creations.

What, however, distinguishes or disunites them ultimately as Nigerian poets of a particular or of the same generation, or, of different generations are their different notions of poetry or (of) their separate species of the school(s) of poetry whose doctrines or philosophies they espouse – or seem to espouse. (I may be contradicting myself, but my contradiction, if it is visibly visible, should be blamed on the poets’ peculiar thrushes – song thrushes).

With particular reference to Femi Osofisan to whom this essay is devoted, it is vital to remark, or, better, to ask, at this point in the essay: What school(s) of poetry is his? And what are his poetic doctrines, including his philosophy? And why is he really appealing to study as a poet?

As this gleaner is gleaning from his Remember Tenderness and The Jeweller of the Night, Femi Osofisan writes or composes heterogeneous poetry as his thrush allows him. What does the gleaner mean in exact and precise terms? I must keep my readers in abeyance and suspense by quoting Owojecho Omoha again:

“Again, you beat me to being a gluer, a writer engagingly engaged in mentally dragging the reader so much that at a point, he/she fascinatingly accepts to being a captive. I mean that you theoretically captured me in this writing. Truly, and I mean every moment of my mental shift as a reader re-engaged me. I was enthralled. When I suddenly got to the end, I was saddened. The sadness! Nothing more to read other than the fading anthem: “Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.”

The simulation and empathy co-existing with my imagination dragged me this far to behave like Oliver Twist. Being a gluer, TA, you played on me. You are a gluer of immense proportion.”

What a vitally vital composition that cannot (and could not) but enthuse the gleaner (and his un-alienated audience)!

To be continued.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.