Among other functions, poetry educates, informs, and entertains. Poets who have the skills to combine the three functions in an anthology are, by conventional wisdom, successful with their creative endeavours.
Among other functions, poetry educates, informs, and entertains. Poets who have the skills to combine the three functions in an anthology are, by conventional wisdom, successful with their creative endeavours.
In entertaining, educating and informing the reader using the genre of poetry, there is neither a rule of thumb nor a specific structure/style to follow, a poet just needs to be natural in the use of whatever language of communication s/he chooses, and original in ideas and contents.
A socio-political poet is rare in a country where freedom of speech is an alien. There could be many of them, but they usually express themselves with obscurity. That does not diminish the fact that they are acting as the mirror of the society. Through their pens, they fight for social justice and political emancipation.
They use strong but effective poetic utterances to analyse, disseminate, inform, educate and entertain the reader on socio-political issues that can cripple the growth and development of any nation. They can also foretell what will happen in the not-too-distant future hence some of them are called ‘Prophets’. In this anthology entitled ‘Songs of a Wounded Dove’ written by ‘Dele Kogbe, the poet trails the paths of established poets who always spit fire to the authority, and successfully and masterfully educates and informs the reader about some socio-political issues in Africa, especially in Nigeria. Published in Ibadan in 2007, the collection offers the reader 49 juicy poems that touch the heart of the matter, and show that when the singing dove is wounded, peace and tranquillity may become elusive.
The 49 poems are, ‘The African Legends’, World and Its Ruling’, ‘Our Trapped Poly’, ‘This Widow’, ‘Sisi Omoge’, ‘Dark Civilization’, ‘Our Culture’, ‘Our Kings, Our Crowns’, ‘Dying Hope’, ‘June 12’, ‘Civic Commands’, ‘Pensioners’ Lament’, ‘Our Fear of Guns’, ‘In a Game of Dirt’, ‘The Wigs of Our Judge’, ‘Naira’, ‘Looking for the Doves’, ‘I Heard of Mr. White’, ‘Lions of the Night’, ‘Bitter Side of Life’, ‘Subornation’, ‘Mere Wording’, ‘Tribalism’, ‘Mother Africa’, ‘Captured Wisdom’, ‘Saviour of our Ado’, ‘A New Door for Dawn’, ‘Ours to Strive to Revive’, ‘WASOBIA’s Dream’, ‘A Faithful Drunkard’, ‘Apete’, ‘Haiku 1’, and ‘Haiku 2’. From the first poem to the last one, the poet presents his strong poetic voice on the following socio-political themes, Politics, Widowhood and Inheritance, Culture and Tradition, Life and Death, Discrimination, Civilization, Natural Disaster, Injustice, Conflict, Sexual Promiscuity, Nudity and Seduction. ‘The African Legends’ is the first poem in this anthology, which has 29 lines divided into two stanzas. It showers praises on the African legends. The poet pays homage to them and compares one of the foremost African writers, Wole Soyinka with William Shakespeare. Coincidentally, both great men – one, an African writer, and the other, a European writer – have the same initial, ‘WS’.
The poet reaffirms that as black as Africans are, they have produced Nobel Prize winners in Literature. So, it is about knowledge and not about colour of the skin. ‘Our Trapped Poly’, exposes the age-long discrimination that exists against the graduates of polytechnic education that put them in perpetual low-class level in the scheme of things. Though, ‘They read like their teachers’, but due to discrimination, they can only get a pass not a credit let alone a distinction. ‘Graduates of polytechnic make a jobless cry, and because of this, students are now flooding the universities for admission neglecting the polytechnics. A poem against harmful traditional practice is ‘This Widow’. It shows how the immediate family members of the deceased breadwinner usually maltreat the widow. She is accused of killing her husband and therefore deprived of any inheritance. Her children become orphans and vulnerable: ‘Widow’s agony spreads to children/ The orphans now trudge to school’, exposing them to danger.
Two poems, ‘Sisi Omoge’ and ‘Dark Civilization’, educate the reader about the danger of sexual promiscuity, and nudity. Sisi Omoge is a spinster whom the poet admonishes to protect her dignity and pride for her future husband. She has been hurting and seducing men, but a time will come when her pride wanes, ‘Men would come but remember the pride’. In Dark Civilization, the poet traces the origin of nudity among African ladies to the incursion of foreign ways into African culture. According to the poet, ‘Men pay no fee into the theatre of nakedness’. To the poet, every abnormal sexual behaviour is a product of dark civilization. But in ‘Our Culture’, the poet praises African culture to high heavens: ‘Beautiful outfits wore in decent ways/Virtues of our maidens always in gold/Never vilified by promiscuous imps’. These are the products of African culture where nudity is an alien. The poet starts his political outbursts with a poem, ‘June 12’, a day that symbolizes true democracy without tribalism, religious bigotry and nepotism and favouritism in Nigeria. The poet here becomes a prophet, ‘Its memory shall continue to linger/And shall never be erased…’. These two lines have been reinforced by the government of the day, who has perpetuated the day in the heart and soul of the country by making it Nigeria’s Democracy Day. The poet takes a swipe on the despot who annulled the June 12, 1993, Presidential Election in Nigeria, ‘A political Maradona, who dribbles brains…’.
This poem summaries ‘June 12’ and its consequences in Nigerian political landscape in few juicy lines of poetry. With ‘Pensioners’ Lament, the poet empathises with pensioners who are denied gratuities and other state benefits. He creatively curses those who are denying ‘grey heads’ the fruits of their labour.
Another interesting poem in this work is, ‘Naira’. Using first-person narrative, the poet gives a voice to Naira, Nigerian currency, to scream at the reader on the ways its pride and dignity were stolen in the league of currencies of the world. From the opening poem to the last poem, ‘Dele Kogbe sets out to correct certain societal vices, and fights for socio-political justice as well.
While most socio-political poets usually hide under obscure words and difficult language, ‘Dele Kogbe’s style and language are easy to understand and direct to the reader without any ambiguity. The 49 poems in this anthology are arranged mildly and creatively thereby inviting us to a public space where beautiful words start to breathe in our minds. They charge and challenge us to be aware of some socio-political issues bedevilling both public and private spaces. If you are about to choose an anthology, let it be ‘Songs of a Wounded Dove’ to be able to value and appreciate peace and tranquillity in human existenc
