By Tony Afejuku

What is clear – or what should be clear – so far from the glitterer’s reading of Kola Eke’s poetry which 1967 and Other Poems manifests is that life should be a work of poetry – meaning that life should be a work of art. Of course, he does not go out of his way deliberately to make a universal claim in this respect. His poetry is Modern Nigerian Poetry. His art is Modern Nigerian Art of a remarkable, of an amazing, poetic rendition to give Nigeria and living Nigerians prognostic value.

The point of issue is that the glitterer correctly affirms and rightly identifies the seeds of the future in the actions of the present. The glitterer, a fellow and senior, elderly poet, sees from his investigation that there is a valid reason for believing that Kola Eke has the fertile imagination to render his formula or equipment for living Nigerian citizens in a manner that suggests that he understands perfectly the revolutionary demands in the supreme politics of poetry. Other modern Nigerian poets fit this exact description.

As a matter of fact, modern Nigerian poets such as Romanus Egudu, Olu Obafemi, Niyi Osundare, Tanure Ojaide, Odia Ofeimun, Okinba Launko, Tony Afejuku, Idris Amali, Akachi Ezeigbo, and others belong here in different degrees.

These are his far seniors and elders in the art of writing, whose works he read and studied diligently, efficiently and effectively as he prepared himself for his poetic taste and art. This is not an assumption. This utterance is based on the solid evidence that the glittererer possesses. As a matter of fact, let this investigator go more than a step further and affirm thus: Kola Eke studied properly the respective methods of the listed poets who, in varying degrees, are morally revolutionary, revolutionarily moral, politically rebellious and rebelliously political – and highly sensitive moral creators who are committed to bringing enormous positive changes to our country despite different semblances of world-weary cynicism spotted in some of their poems. In other words, the poets in some of their written poems present cynical or weary attitude toward life in Nigeria, but their true underlying motivation is deep patriotism and a desire for reform, at least – if not a desire for total rebellion.

Although the poets are different in their creative methods or strategies, they cannot properly be put apart until they have to be first put together. Kola Eke’s equipment in themes and topics may be said to have, intuitively, some tongues of the referenced poets, but he is uniquely different from them. In each of the twelve sections of 1967 and Other Poems Kola Eke espouses his sense for catalogued values in which the reader sees the moral flaws, ambiguities, the lie, the deceit and complexity, the pain, the loss, and the irony, and the subdued wonder of life itself in our country. The characters who populate his text, who populate his poetry, are designed as equipment for living Nigerians, for living Nigerian citizens, to learn from – in order to overcome their dehumanising fate.

And talking about the characters in Kola Eke’s poetry reminds the glitterer once again of Kenneth Burke who, according to his ‘editor’ and mini-biographer, David H. Richter, averred as follows: “Authors are agents who act within a certain scene (their environment) by means of a certain agency (writing) to achieve a purpose. These five terms – agent, act, scene, agency, and purpose” constitute the Burkean pentad. The relationships between them offer a framework employed to analyse human motives and actions.

Their application to Kola Eke’s poetry as equipment for Nigerians enables us readers to appreciate the fruitfulness with which the poet depicts and re-enacts the scene of each poem in which we see the characters who illustrate the typical recurrent situations in Nigeria’s social, economic and political structures. The idea or point of issue here needs further qualification and elaboration which the glitterer is transporting elsewhere outside the column. As he intimated in the first serial, he intended (and still intends) this to be a short review.

Now let me quote fully the following poem, entitled “The Flight of Cooking Gas”, randomly chosen, to communicate some of the ideas tendered:

“Like swallows and bats
Prices of cooking gas
Have grown wings
Flying beyond the reach of citizens

Like storks and vultures
Prices of cooking gas
Have developed wings
Not for the ordinary man

Like golden plovers
Equipped with wings
Migrating and migrated
Beyond the poor

Like kites
Armed with wings
Flying across the sky
Not for the middle class

Migrating journeys of
Cooking gas

Triggered by the
Sadistic tax in importation

Obnoxious flights of
Cooking gas
Manured by the
Imposition of VAT

And the people
Trying to resurrect
Use of firewood for
Daily cooking needs

A pleasant plea
To our leaders
Break the wings
Cancel the flight of cooking gas.

This is a sumptuously plain and un-plain poem at the same time that depicts the Nigerian situation of cruelty and sabotage – economic, political, and social. The major characters in the poem are the oppressed and exploited poor and the rich and political leaders – evil, wicked, and mercenary men who obviously do to the poor people and masses as they please. The poet employs proverbial expressions and constructions to admonish and exhort the rich to “Break the wings/[And] cancel the flight of cooking gas”.

The implication of the symbols is clear. The poet foretells the recipe(s) that will follow and appear in the land if his plea, admonition, and exhortation are not heeded.

Easy access to cooking gas will uplift the spirits of the poor the poet is equipping with the thought and hope of a new day and era when the “use of firewood for/Daily cooking gas needs” will cease to be. Will this rhetoric sound right to members of the business, aviation, political, and criminal organisations who the poet is equally equipping with his
“pleasant plea” to create new situations of fairness, kindness, and righteousness in the land? Or will they find it
gripping in their anxiety?

To be concluded next week.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.