| Christopher Okigbo resurrects in "Biafra Is
Still On My Mind" in the eve of Odumegwu Ojukwu's burial
Book: Oku N’agba Ozala (Wild Fire) And
Other Poems
Author: Victor Okechukwu Anyaegbuna
Publisher: Xlibris, United Kingdom
Year: 2011
Pages: 96
Reviewer: Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga
“Oku N’agba Ozala (Wild Fire)
And Other Poems,” Victor Anyaegbuna’s second poetry volume comes with
encyclopedia of bottled up gases of anger on both local and universal
oppressors and killers of masses dreams. He takes swipe at neocolonial wolves
parading themselves as patriots and saviours in Nigeria and other global
countries.
The 96-page book contains 51
poems that spread tentacles like a hydra on historical events in Nigeria and
the global community. The first poem in the collection is entitled "My
Boy," which laments the evaporation of the old good days when Nigeria was
truly Nigeria as a giant of Africa using her eagle-like feathers to protect and
guide not only the citizens in her sovereign territory but others of several
African countries. He wonders why people keep suffering when there are still
good people who can govern the world for the benefit of all. Hence, in lines
eight and nine of My Boy, second
stanza, the poet says, “…The world is blessed with many good people/But the
wicked abound in the rubble.”
The poet bares his mind on the
current situation of things with a poem entitled Biafra Is Still On My Mind, which reminds one of the current MASSOB’s
group struggle in the eastern part of the country, coupled with the present
preparation for late freedom-activist/prophet Odumegwu Ojukwu’s final burial. Hence,
in Biafra Is Still On My Mind the poet person says; “Biafra is till on my
mind/ They have done nothing to erase it./ I still hear everywhere,/ Words that
betray my serenity;/ I still see around me,/Acts that make me/ Want to fight
again.” The repetition of the statement “Biafra is still on my mind” of each of
the six stanzas of the poem shows the poet’s seriousness with his message. It
reminds one about the Biafran spirit of late poet, Christopher Okigbo. Things
have not really changed for the easterners in Nigeria since the end of the civil
war more than four decades ago. Marginalization of the region by the powers
that be, since the end of the progrom is still very glaring in the region, in
terms of absence of good motor-able federal roads, provision of essential
federal health institutions, and the callous delay of the construction of the
Third Niger Bridge to link the east and the inner south-south states of Nigeria, for easier moment of goods and delivery of services among citizens living in the region. Not happy at all with the
present situation of things in the country, the author calls for divine renewal
of his lost dreams to kiss the light of fulfillment, in a poem entitled
"Ode To My Path." He says in stanza three; “Let the air I shall
breath to live alight/ And tender renewed eagles in flight;/That I may stand again
and fight/ Let my life renew in height and might.” Here, the poet experiments
on quatrain even rhymes with internal rhyme in the last line. One noticeable
feature in both poems is Anyaegbuna’s use of couplet or heroic rhymes in "My
Boy" and quatrain even rhymes in "Ode To My Path." This style is
absent in the poet’s first volume entitled "The Skeleton Says It
All." Though some poets consider rhyming poems as archaic and dilapidated
style of writing and tries to propagate blank verse as modern and better, it is
an un-arguable fact that rhyming poems are more difficult to write than blank
verses. Anybody can sleep and wake up and write verse, but finding the right
words with appropriate phonology is not a child’s play when creating even or
alternate rhyming lines. Perhaps, that is the reason the rhyming pattern
employed by the poet in the aforementioned poems is not sustained throughout
the collection.
Other poems that shares similar
rhyming couplet pattern in the collection include "Odiniru,"
"Betrayed" and "Professor Ndu Eze." Majority of the poems
in the volume are blank verses. From the foregoing, it can be assumed, that the
author is more versed in blank verses than rhyming lines. This, the author
displays in "Oku N’agba Ozala" the poem which serves as the cover
title of the volume, which he dedicates to late Iraqi’s President Saddam
Hussein thus: “And the realm fled/When the fouled air rent odium/ Hunted by the
ghost of mortal asininity./ For four days the gates of Tikrit were sealed/ But
deadly shots defied the air with smoke / As pictures of a great celebrity/
Bestrode the streets in great frenzy/ Vending on the altar of vengeance./ The
solution became the problem/ As hordes of the aggrieved and curious/ Thronged
Ouja, the land of modern history/ Launching an annual pilgrimage/ At the
tyrant’s grave, that, years ahead/ Will claim a martyr./… Men make heroes out
of villains/ And courts sympathy/ In the house of bitterness. … The gallows
floor gave way/ And Saddam sped through/ They valley of the gloom of mortality/
Face to face with the reality of eternity/ With neither remorse, regret nor
repentance./ God overlooked it/ But is wasn’t His act./ Here then the martyr of
Iraq/ Paving with his blood/ The tortuous of Arab xenophobia/ The conflagration
of Bush,/ And superpower terrorism.”
However, the volume is not
entirely concerned with anger against oppressors in our society as there are
still some good people worthy or praises in our nation especially among the
author's kindred, in his home state of origin, Anambra and other places in the
moribund Africa’s giant. As the saying goes, “Charity begins at home,” it is
not bad as he recognizes some illustrious indigenes of Anambra State in the
poem entitled "Serpens Skin," which he dedicates to Anambra State,
Nigeria, thus: “Anambra today, Nigeria’s tomorrow !/ All hail divine
crash-landing/Into realm intelligentsia,/ That Supreme-Peace adjudicated/ May
trail once again/ The prime-terrain of Zik of Africa,/ Where placentas of great
men/ From fated decayed/ To serve identity and tenure, Home for all./… Anambra
today, Nigeria’s upcoming!/ The soil that nurtured Chinua Achebe/ And gave life
to Nwafor Orizu./ The estate pride of Christopher Okigbo,/ And economic bounty
of his frater Pius./ The abundance of wit and genius/ Of Philip Emeagwali/ And
Odumegwu Ojukwu,/ Integrity of Nwanonukpo Umuoji/ And Dora Nkem Akunyili; / And
the world keeps racking/ Where Francis Cardinal Arinze,/ Emeka Anyaoku/ And the
excel of Nigeria abode/ With greatest unborn!/ The heart and brain of our
land,/ Home for all/…”
Through "Julian,"
"Paramour," "My Last love" and other poems in the
collection, the poet displays his amorous feelings. As the saying goes, “All
work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” Hence, whether things are tough or
bitter, men will still express feelings on issues that concern the opposite
sex. The following lines in the poem entitled "Julian," shows
Anyaegbuna's concern for matters of amorous inclination like all normal men, as
he dissects his feelings in milky emotional response to what he observes in the
opposite sex thus; “The lollipops drooped/ Around succulent arms and thighs/ To
propel charm,/ And vend warmth/ On maddening bargains.”
The use of various powerful
imageries, alliteration and synthetic flow of rhythm in most of the poems,
evokes a kind of lyrical blues of sorrow and seldom joy in the mind of the
reader. These elements are quite glaring in poems like "Elegy to Hallowed
Dreams," "Cockcrow at Dusk," "Odiniru," "My Last
love," "Words To Myself," "Elegy To Liz,"
"Drunkard’s sorrow," "Friends," "Fire,"
"Four-One-Nine," "When I die," "My Bundle of Joy"
and several others in the volume. He writes with lyrical logarithms like a
professor of scientific poetry.
Very minor typos were noticed in
the book, but this does not in anyway diminish the messages and package of the
book. It is also devoid of mechanical noise which makes reading it stress-free.
Victor Anyaegbuna has shown that scientists could be great poets too if they
can find time to open their emotions with elevated diction bordering on nature
and win the sympathy of the reader; which are the two cardinal characteristics
of poetry, according to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Anyaegbuna is a hospital
proprietor in Lagos Nigeria. He is a member of the American College of
Physician Executives (ACPE), and Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA). He is a
first class traditional chieftaincy title holder, the "Nwanonukpo
II," and an "Ichie" of Cabinent Rank in his native homeland,
Umuoji (Igwulube Okodu) in Anambra State, Nigeria.
END
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