The selection of Raindrum – one of the poems of widely-acclaimed poet, Prof. Niyi Osundare, by Creative Scotland for the coming London Olympics – gives the ‘meditative’ poem written in 1984 its literary due, writes GBENGA ADENIJI
The dystopian novel, 1984 authored by English writer, Eric Blair (George Orwell) is a political fiction which creatively offers refreshing insights into the dangers of despotic rule.
But away from the fictional year which the novel is titled, Nigeria’s multiple award-winning poet, Prof. Niyi Osundare recalls the real ‘1984’ as a year he wrote Raindrum – a poem which was recently selected by Creative Scotland organisers of a broadcast series named The Written Word London 2012 poetry project.
The organisation is partnering with the British Broadcasting Corporation and other organisations to use the selected poems from each of the 205 countries which will compete at the forthcoming London Olympics and beyond the sport festival to provide an ‘‘opportunity to bond poetry from many nations into the lives of people who might not ordinarily be interested in it, giving them a reason to enjoy and explore a great art form.’’
Stating that he received the news of the selection of the poem for the project with great delight, the former Head of English Department, University of Ibadan, who currently lectures at the University of New Orleans, United States, adds that it ‘‘is a very welcome venture indeed, since they are creating a valuable forum for the other clan of performers: cultural and verbal athletes.’’
Osundare says via an email exchange with our correspondent that the chosen poem is an ‘old warrior’. He discloses that it was first published in his book The Eye of the Earth in 1986; re-published in his Selected Poems in 1992; and later in Pages from the Book of the Sun: New And Selected Poems in 2002.
He explains that it is a poem that captures one of the dominant motifs in all his poetry: the rain as antidote to the drought and its withering scarcity and severity; replenisher of the earth and harbinger of bounties; agent of refreshment and renewal and nature’s enabler of human survival.
According to Osundare, ‘meditative’ is a word which describes the title of the poem which he says he composed in Ibadan in March 1984 and completed in Ikere Ekiti, Ekiti State, his hometown, a few days later.
By coincidence or as the literati will say that the muse is at work, the month of the announcement of the poem’s selection coincides with the same month the revered poet wrote the piece in 1984.
He recalls, ‘‘Before and during the act of composition of this poem, I was enveloped by the intense heat that usually comes with that month of the year, that searing, suffocating heat that makes you feel as if you had just been pulled out of a pot of boiling water. The type that arms the sun with scalding fire, and chokes the lungs with muggy air; the type that cakes up the land and comes with the threat of famine…. At the figurative level, there was another drought: the drought of freedom and human rights wrought by the military dictatorship that held Nigeria in thrall when I wrote the poem in 1984.’’
The playwright, linguist and critic adds that expressions such as “iron fingers”, “kettledrums”, “tightened”, and “grilling”, used as images in the poem will give the mental picture he tries to paint.
‘‘But the rain comes with its liberating music and the streets break into liquid dance afterwards. Cornfields rock with ears, and yam tubers swell and surge in the belly of the earth. New seasons a-borning, season of genuine renewal. … The rain is a constant metaphor in my poetic universe. It is the ink in the fountain of my pen. What else do you expect from one that is “farmer-born, peasant-bred? he asks.
Since the organisers of the Written Word are willing to use poems composed in the original and indigenous languages of the poets they have selected, Osundare has to start work on the Yoruba translation titled, ‘Gbedu Ojo’.
He states that some 10 years ago, he started translating a couple of poems in The Eye of the Earth into Yoruba- which he notes is a terrible irony since the poems should have been composed in the indigenous language in the first instance-and ‘Raindrum’ was one of those that went through the first translation drafts.
But he regrets that Hurricane Katrina swept his library and manuscripts away and the translation project went into painful remission. Osundare says the letter from Creative Scotland provided a fresh impetus for the translation of Raindrum.
He says, ‘‘Of course, the pre-Katrina translation is gone forever. I started the translation task afresh, and after many days of agonising toil, a fairly decent text emerged. And as you know, Yoruba without tone marks is like a song without its tune. Since I had no Yoruba software on my computer, I sent the poem to Professor Tunde Akinyemi of the University of Florida at Gainesville, who helped out with the tone-marking.’’
The prolific poet explains that what he has at the end of the day are two poems which behave like two children from the same umbilical cord, but with different codes and performative potentialities. He notes that geniuses such as Akinwumi Isola will tell one that translating from or into Yoruba is a task which requires prodigious talents and god-like skill.
According to the Professor of English, Yoruba has a profundity of melody and music that is so indigenous to it and it is an arduous task to get this music to meld with the music of other languages, including even the famously accommodating English.
Besides, he reveals that another poem of his I Sing of Change will be on display on the London Underground for the duration of the Olympics. Noting that the poem has a long history in the Tube, the poet whose poetry has been translated into many languages, states that it first appeared there five years ago along with five other poems by African poets.
The poem, he adds, was later published into an anthology of selected Poems on the Underground and has already been selected for another anthology due to be published by Penguin to coincide with the London Olympics. Started in 1986, Poems on the Underground, Osundare says is the brainchild of writer and literary activist Judith Chernaik with the active collaboration of Cicely Herbert and Gerard Benson. ‘‘Together, they have kept the Word on the Tube and got the world to sing while it rides…. ‘I Sing of Change’ was published in Songs of the Marketplace, my first book of poems, in 1983, and reproduced in Pages from the Book of the Sun: New & Selected Poems, 2002.’’
Osundare has majestically traversed the global literary terrain publishing over 15 books of poetry, including Songs of the Marketplace, The Eye of the Earth, Songs of the Season, Waiting Laughters and his latest, City Without a People: The Katrina Poems (2011) which explores his personal experiences during the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans. He has also published books of selected poems, plays, essays and various scholarly works and reviews.
When the Olympics games commence on July 27, representatives of each of the participating countries are expected to bond culturally with Raindrum and other selected poems preaching the global gospel of spoken art.
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