What the River Brings You

What the River Brings You

By the time the river reaches you it will bring tidings

Fragments of me along with the richening alluvial

Of other dreams leached as if by some subtle sieve

From the quarters of my cusp, my land, my pride

You swim within the tufted turbans of emirs, amidst the stretched

Arms of Igala fertility cults; when you drink, each drop holds a tang

Of tears of rocks forced to fall on native men at the foot of tin mines.

Everything the river brings you is a cosmic concentric dream – like love

Stranger I may be, I rest my arms on you and say the sacred words;

For my soul is rooted here – for the river precedes me.

© 2010 Richard Ali

JosANA Slam Pictures

JosANA gives me a Headache!

JosANA gives me a Headache!

At the end of each meeting of Jos ANA, I have a headache. Every single time. Being an true blue African, I sought scientific inquiry into this curious state of affairs. My herbalist friend, after the obligatory sacrifices, told me that the headache was caused by “osmosis” – he explained that in high pressure situations, especially where mental energy is being focused, like at JosANA meetings, the brain cells are bombarded with electrons of intellection and a side effect of the ensuing friction is the pulsations of the temple called headache. So you see, I am a happy man. My ailment is scientifically recognized. And, yes, following the last ANA meeting on Saturday 12th July, I had a headache.

I arrived late but did not miss much as the usual “hello, hello” salutes were still going on at 1:09 pm. Bose Tsevende was already there together with Alpha and Michael Emeka, David Onotu. Kanchana Ugbabe was also there, having been absent from JosANA for quite a while. In no time the verandah was full with old and new members, especially our members who fall in-between – those who show up once in a while. We had four new members.

The meeting proper began on a poetic note with our member, Emma Kenine, reading her piece, “In Blue She Comes”. The meeting could not have started on a better note because the poem was just perfect – Emma’s poem had that control of sound, imagery and soul that elite poem have which sets them above reproach. The word “blue” was the anvil on which the poem riposted, much like Federico Garcia Lorca’s “a la cinquo de la tarde” from his most famous poem. David Onotu pointed out that Emma Kenine’s poem also shared similarity of style with a Langston Hughes poem that played on connotations of “red”.

Following Emma’s reading, Abubakar Adam took to the center stage with a reading of “Because You Are a Poet” - a verse offering to Aunty B Tsevende who’s 2007 Poems is titled “You Are a Poet”. In that poem, Abubakar successfully married with simile the motions of dance {Mrs. Tsevende lectures dance} to the “dance” motions of lines of verse. The underlying idea was that Aunty B was a poet while he, Abubakar, was not. However, the Jos City barrister, Redzie Jugo, added a last line to Abubakar’s reading by saying “My guy, you are being too modest!” and urged Abubakar to modify the last line accordingly. Another lawyer, Mahan, said that eulogies are associative and Abubakar ought not to dissociate his innate poetic in his panegyric on Aunty B, thus agreeing with Redzie’s submission. I guess Abubakar ought to have said in stock legalese – “As my Lord pleases!”

Next to read and still in the thrall of poesy was David Onotu and his “Hills of Green”, a highly involved and perceptive poem about the Jos plateau. In his trademark style of man-in-the-arena oratury, David succeeded in weaving a complex tapestry of the Plateau, mother of us all – its ambience, its people, the tensions, the places, the drama of everyday life, our hopes and dreams and the particulars of our collective hubris. There was silence, simply, and then there was applause. No further affirmation can greet an upcoming poetaster than the un-begrudged applause of his no mean contemporaries. Steve Rwang Pam was highly touched by this poem and Redzie said there ought to be collaboration with Aunty B to stage it in the Theatre. Richard Ali said indeed it demanded a screenplay. Our member, Patience Egwurube, who is a writer of screenplays nodded her head in concurrence. Bose Tsevende asked Steve Rwang Pam to look into the possibility to having the poem as a jingle of Radio and the Country music crooner said he’d be delighted to do that. Steve also said that David’s poem was the sort of art that was the material for further works of art.

In what is becoming Michael Emeka’s forte, prose, he read an excerpt from his upcoming novel titled “The Tide”. Michael’s ear for prose is perhaps as perceptive as David Onotu’s ear for poetry – such was his presence of mind as he told a tale of a young man walking heedlessly into the whirlpool of petroleum smuggling as opposed to going to Aba to apprentice himself as an auto spare parts dealer. He was able to capture with his prose the drama of the rivalries between parents and in highly effective interior monologues, he captured the mind of his central character. An A1 awareness of description kept the entire excerpt together, stringing his audience along. Prof. Kanchana Ugbabe commented on the psyche of the piece and on Michael’s use of language. She also wondered how the novel would end? Redzie Jugo noted it was a fantastic excerpt only that the beginning seemed too long and detailed. Richard Ali agreed with Redzie and suggested that the opening paragraphs, which describe a journey to a petroleum dump, should be cut by about a third. Steve Rwang Pam said it was a “well spiced” reading and Mahan said that everyone could identify with the story, commending the contemporaneity of Michael’s subject. The truth is, it would be impossible for me to convey in reported prose the reactions to “The Tide.”

Steve Rwang Pam read his second poem this year, an interesting one called “Looking Back”. It was verse steeped in nostalgia for simpler, less complicated times and it set off some debate in the house.

When warmth was for the skin
And allergies were not known
Where goldfinches twit and nightingales sustain
The resonance of divine symphony

Steve said the allusion in the poem was Biblical, that he imagined Adam reciting the poem. Among other things, Richard Ali said if that was so then perhaps the title should be “Adam Looking Back?” but this suggestion was shot down variously and died midair. JosANA is perhaps one of the few places in the country where artists find material for their work even in religion. Indeed, only at the last meeting, Mrs. Tsevende had read a poem full of religious allusions.
Next, Alpha Emeka read his entry for the 2008 Commonwealth Short Story Competition, a 501 word entry titled “A Season of Blessing.” It was one of those existentialist stories – a man leaves the stifling fumes and strictures of the city for the remembered tranquility and ozonic air of the countryside only to find that the monsterface of urbanity had replicated itself there just as well. Among the comments was that though there was a word limit for the CSSC, Alpha could have added the nuance of moral/personal degradation side by side with environmental degradation. But even without that, no one doubts that the next Commonwealth Short Story Prize will be won by a member of JosANA. { If Molara Wood doesn’t, of course!}

Richard Ali, who chaired the meeting, shared out info-fliers about the upcoming Cavalcade literary journal being published by the Abuja Writers Forum – the most serious writer’s body in the Nigerian capital.

On firmer ground now, having left poetry behind, Abubakar read a short story titled “Night Call”. “Night Call” is the story of a young man who falls into the trap of a femme fatale courtesy an inauspicious telephone conversation. At the end of the story, the man is set to hang for a murder he did not commit – of the siren’s husband. I am a lover of the bette noir movies and this story would have had Roman Polanski screaming for his scriptwriter and cameraman! Along the line, in prison, a guard befriends the hapless young man and they form a plan to entrap Farida la femme via a taped confession. BUT, the tape runs out just before her confession! To understand the story, let me recommend my second favorites bette noire – pick out “The Man Who Wasn’t There” when next you are at the Video Club. Following Abubakar’s reading, Richard, who had been silent all the while, bemoaned the fact that writers up north and in JosANA were content to come read their poems bi-weekly and get applause – but a literary reputation is gotten by being in the larger public arena. He said the way to force your work into that arena is to get them published in journals and anthologies, like Cavalcade, African Writing and Sentinel Poetry. Helon Habila had given Jos writers the same advice during his 2007 book tour. And really, I bet you my last Bic biro, some of the stuff routinely read and praised during our meetings, the stuff I write about in my digest – were you to actually read them or hear them being read, it would blow your mind away. Jos City is at the heart of the Nigerian cultural renaissance and JosANA is the natural leader of that reappraisal.

Kanchana Ugbabe, professor of Creative Writing, lent a word in agreement with Richard’s exhortation. She came in with recent printouts from the New Yorker – Chimamanda Adichie’s “The Headstrong Historian” and something from Uwem Akpan, the Jesuit priest who is currently the homeboy of Nigerian letters. Her point was that young writers ought to send their work out, to local newspapers and journals as well as to International ones because there really are only two answers to any question. A literary reputation rests on the acclaim that heralds a writer who has made himself synonymous with more “yes” answers than “no.”

Bose Tsevende was in her natural element rendering two poems with intros in Yoruba language. The Jos literary movement is a sort of levitation – comprising the most talented writers who, standing on the shoulders of giants, have a vantage and voice that is distinctly theirs. Bose Tsevende’s poems have even become finer following her 2007 poems and her next collection sure would be a hot pick.

PHIL: {Struggles for a while and then gives up} No use!
RATTY: Say, what do we have for breakfast?
PHIL: Breakfast? Breakfast in the evening?
RATTY: Well, I thought it was morning . . . the moon.
PHIL: There is no moon Ratty! How can there be a moon in the morning?
RATTY: Its not morning Phil. Look! We are still here . . .it’s evening.
PHIL: Have we ever moved? We were here in the morning. . .
RATTY: And afternoon . . .and in the evening.
PHIL: We were here yesterday.
RATTY: We were here all the yesterdays.

YES! The first play read this year at JosANA was Paul Ugbede’s “Two Characters Undefined”. In this powerfully existentialist {the spirit of Sartre was strong} drama that is at once reminiscent of Harold Pinter’s “The Birthday Party”, Paul, Jos City’s most talented young playwright, skillfully took on the entire superstructure of civilization through the perceptions of Phil and Ratty – maybe they are madmen, maybe they are aspects of the same mind? David Onotu, who voiced Ratty, compared it to Samuel Becketts classic “Waiting for Godot.” Paul Ugbede’s talents have also been recognized abroad. He was at the University of Lancaster courtesy the British Council a while back and recently, he got a 2000 pound scholarship to study at the Bath Spa University. {He joins Uche Peter Umez who won one of the scholarships for short story.} The play was very well received by the floor and Mahan said it reminded him of a Hausa joke about two drunks disputing on whether it was a sun or moon in the sky one night – they resolved to ask a third man {who is even more drunken} who assured them that he was merely a visitor to the neighborhood and so could not say whether it was sun or moon!
One thing is for sure, Paul Ugbede is IN the arena!

We returned to poetry with the reading of new member, Derek Idjai’s “Tribute to Fela”. Next came Richard Ali and he read two poems – “Ovonramven” and “When I Die.” The prize winning Esther Chinke, who came in with her sister, Ruth also read. Esther’s poem was titled “Blood on our Street” and it was a haunting verse collage of the 2001 internecine conflict on the plateau. Her line “Laughter fled with the rains” is perhaps the most haunting opening line ever read at JosANA.

The meeting came to an end with Redzie Jugo’s reading of his poem “Useless Use.” An extremely controversial, and thus successful, poem involving the skilful conjuring of sense and wordplay, Barrister Jugo’s poem kept JosANA members disputing long after the meeting ended.
And yes, I did get a headache after the meeting! But thanks to science, I know it is well with my mind.


Richard Ugbede Ali is Secretary General of JosANA and inquiries may be sent to rugbali@gmail.com

Josana Boku Boku Tori

The chairmanship of Bose Ayeni-Tsevende got off to a rip-roaring start on Saturday 14th June at the Nigerian Film Institute grounds where JosANA holds forth. We had new members coming in, old members showing up and consistent members being their usual writerly selves. One couldn’t really ask for more – except that I have got this overwhelming desire to try typing this email-digest in pidgin. I don’t know where it comes from but I shall indulge this very middleclass craving!

The meeting start sharp to one o’clock when Bose Tsevende arrive with Micheal Emeka, Alpha Emeka and David Onotu inside her motor. Them meet Richard Ali as him dey enter gate so as e come dey, all of them join for front of Institute. Them come dey halla each other, dey talk “how you dey?” and general palaver. Aunty B look fine like omoge for her jeans but she come vex small as Richard been tease am, dey call am chairman. But na play play vex sha. Finally all of us come start dey carry chair from inside hall go the balcony because the breeze just dey cool for balcony and you know say writer brain sometimes e dey hot pass oven. Sha, after we don flex our muscle dey carry chairs na him David Onotu been localize one bag of cooked groundnut wey them buy for road. We sit down dey chop the groundnut dey wait for members as we still continue our palaver. Small small the balcony come dey full, five, six, seven, twelve and so on and so forth.

We just wan start the meeting proper na him one woman come come ask for Professor Ugbabe. But Kanchana Ugbabe no come that day. The woman name na Mrs. Joseph and she be nurse for Quan Pan Local Government Area of Plateau State. As we come find out say she ma na writer she be, we come welcome am proper proper give am seat to siddon. She been come with the book wey she write, the name of the book na “Jiji” and na about the myth and legend for lower plateau areas, all these them Langtang, Quan Pan side. We no even finish that salutation when one caucasian omoge wey be our old member come arrive, her name na Carmen McCain and she dey do masters for Wisconsin {America funny name} University – she come Naija come do research for Hausa film industry, all the way from George Bush country! Allahu akbar, Kannywood don go international! Nothing dey happen!

The meeting proper start with Stephanie Onyejekwe and she read one short story wey sweet well well. I don forget the name of the story but I know say “grave” dey inside sha. Anyway, the story sweet well well. The story na about all these yeye people wey dey kill their fellow man pickin because religion. Na so two neighbor, one Christian and one Muslim come take kpai themselves oh – hmm, but as them people come bury them, na for the same graveyard them throway them for ground! You see! Anyhow, Richard been like the story especially as the thing short well well jus dey like miniskirt, everything correct, but him talk say them get some redundancy {scatter scatter grammer} wey dey inside, for example where she talk say “in a pool of their own blood” – him talk say that “their” no dey necessary because if them kpai themselves, the blood na their own! “In a pool of blood”, even though the thing sound like cliché, for better. Abubakar Adam wey win BBC African Performance for 2007 ma join, come point out one place wey Stephanie write say dem bury those yeye people for “empty grave” – to, him talk say for all him experience {dey go burial oh, no be say as undertaker} him never hear where them bury person for grave wey no empty. Na so Alpha Emeka come nack him own on top, him talk say him believe say the short tory still fit to be expanded, say make she add more characters and scenarios, say that go make am short tory wey go sweet belle even pass as e dey now. David Onotu first gree with him palle, Alpha, then him come add say him feel say the inciting incident for the story {na water dem fight on top oh} dey too small, say people no dey fight like that on top water. But then Abubakar come talk say no, say our own Jos crisis here wey we do for 2001, no be woman na him them say insult Muslim man wey dey pray, abi na Muslim man wey spit ablution water on top woman – yet see as them kpai people! Abubakar say the water na valid inciting incident and in fact, na correct metaphor sef as to say them dey fight on top wetin God give for free, him commend Stephanie writing well well. Bose Tsevede plus her comments come correct Stephanie pronunciation of “sword”, say na “sord” e be – hmm, from now on, I go call am “sord”, me ma I don benefit from JosANA, abi how you see am? Stephanie been respond small to the boku comments wey she get from floor.

Next na him Alpha Emeka read small from him second book “Aunty Florence” wey him write in collaboration with Aunty B Tsevende. The part wey him read na one marriage situation wey two ayonge’ omoge call Kiki and Florence dey talk, whether to marry man wey get money or to marry man wey go take them away from the village wey them dey. Na serious matter oh! As always now, we all of us clap for am well well when him finish. Richard, that surutu boy, na him first start criticism. Him talk say the excerpt sweet him belle well well and him hail Alpha but him come point out say for one part Alpha read say a clay pot been “shatter to pieces” – Richard talk say “to pieces” dey redundant one kind like that because say if something shatter, na to pieces now. Writerman no need to talk everything before we sabi, abi how you see am? David Onotu been praise the “consistent atmosphere” for the piece as per say Alpha describe village well well as if him na village boy! The white omoge, Carmen McCain, come commend the use of short precise sentences for the excerpt to denote action and na him everybody come say aha, the thing sef jus dey like Chinua Achebe him Arrow of God. That na perhaps why e sweet like so.

Anyway, the next person wey read na David Onotu, the one wey Richard dey call terrible pickin, and him na poem e read – Eve of Iska. The poem na offering to the immortal shrine of our papa of Arewa wey die not long ago, Pa Cyprian Ekwensi. The poem na one long, rambling verse written with the perceptive eye of a person wey poetry dey him blood. Oh boy, see poem! The thing just dey flow dey go like okro soup dey go down big man throat and the powerful allusion plus simile and metaphor wey that boy use – e just dey like correct stockfish for inside the okro soup. I tell you, I just siddon inside the tip of my chair and I fall down sef but nobody see me because everybody dey listen seriously like say na rapture. {David Onotu is by far the most stunning of the up and coming Nigerian poets, seamlessly borrowing the innate ear for rhythm that marks out Osundare at his best with a social perception as keen as Langston Hughes’s.} Abubakar talk say when him hear David read him poems, im dey become aware of how “feeble” im attempt at writing poems be. Bose Tsevende say wistfully about youth and how important e dey to write each poem for him own time because time go come when you no go fit write am again. I gree with that talk oh, hmm, nothing dey make me fear pass to think say when I die God go call all my incomplete and unwritten poems to prosecute me on Judgment Day – I dey fear that fate well well. Alpha Emeka commend Onotu synthesis of sense and rhythm.

We been talk something but I don forget. Carmen and Richard Ugbede Ali been talk something about Chimamanda Adichie and Chinua Achebe. She say she agree in part for some of the things wey him talk about Chi Chi for him article “On Miss Adichie’s Sensibility”. Kai, I don forget.

Abubakar Adam come read one chapter from him novel wey him still dey write. Abubakar first novel, “The Quest for Nina” suppose commot for United States of A publisher by late August. The movement wey him read na about Bala wey hate cockroach with all him life and them come think say him father, ma, na cockroach he be. Him reading come explode critical tory for floor. Richard talk say for the excerpt Abubakar been digress too much come dey talk about the different kind cockroach wey dey {international species} so tey the thing come become lecture. And Richard no like lecture for inside novel at all at all. Alpha come talk say, this cockroach sef, na character of the character? We come dey wonder how long the novel go be if this him long cockroach digression go fit into the whole without looking like hand wey whitlow dey worry am. Sha, Abubakar talk say him still dey write the book so make we keep out ear for amber until him finish – them we go understand properly. I dey wait.

Richard come read from him own novel in progress wey him dey edit and reedit. The name of the novel na “The Legacy of Bolewa” and him read from inside chapter four. Everybody like him reading and writing but “but” dey. Alpha talk say him must to dey careful with “the superfluity of flowery description” so that the novel no go come dey sweet so tey reader go just lost the meaning of the story – you know, like siren wey dey sing for sailorman them for Niger-Delta so them go dey follow him voice until them drown. Richard gree say even him ma dey fear that fate, say na part of why him dey try re edit be that – so that the poetry for him language no go overwhelm the prose of him novel. Bose Tsevende talk say Ricahrd dey more interested in “beings” and not “things” and that na why him dey follow follow the nuance of him character thinking. Redzie talk say the descriptions for the excerpt dey apt but make Richard try to work in “interjections for turbulence”, so reader no go dey choked on the beauty of language. Another tori come break – Abubakar say something about dialog. Richard come talk say him done dey tire for wetin him call “the tyranny of showing”, him say critic this days too dey concentrate for dialog so writers dey write dialog against them will and sometimes against their sense sef. Him talk say critics dey like dragon wey go spit fire on top any prose wey no get “dialog”, that is, the “component of showing”. Redzie been talk say him ma notice the obsession with dialog but still sha that dialog dey dey necessary to show idiosyncrasies of characters. Redzie again talk say good prose suppose dey more concerned with “the skillful handling of the story” in opposition to the skillful handling of dialog. Abubakar talk say balance must to dey between description and action. The caucasian omoge, Carmen, na she talk say the thing come down to the style of the writer – Richard been retort say critics dey anti style and them go write bad reviews. Alpha come talk about him Radiophonics radio play and how him been work in dialog during his draft, him say dialog dey very important, because e dey show the contour of characters. The tori long small sha.

Next na our two pickin for the house, Oreoluwa and Adelaja na them read. Both of them na the pickins of Dr. Agboola and them been come with their mama, Paulette, because their papa don travel. Laja been re-read the poem wey him been read for ANA last week but him come add second stanza. We been encourage am with clap well well but somehow, the second stanza wey him add spoil the poem. The second stanza kuma try to force rhyme “poor/sore” so that the meaning come lost in the process. The boy try well well, him na just 10 years old. But men, na him younger sister, Oreoluwa, na her poem scatter head pass – sophisticated, and she na 7 going to 8 years she be. The title of her poem na “Jewelry Flower” and subtle double rhyme been dey the first line – in short, na fantastic poem, the girl collect plenty clap oh!

Jos city barrister, Redzie Jugo read him poem “O Chief”.

Na then na him Michael Emeka come read one short tory titled “Voices” about taximan Ndu and how him dey try get fuel for him motor during scarcity and about how soldier man dem no fit take people do rofo fofo is them dey unite. Comments been follow – Richard talk say instead of to say “petroleum product”, e for better of him dey more specific if na diesel or petrol. Abubakar been pick out some redundancies while Redzie feel say the short tory for fit end before when e actually actually end. Everybody agree say Michael don get draft of masterpiece for him hand. Bose Tsevende {Chairman} talk say writers of this generation suppose dey address the kind things wey people dey grapple with each day – like Michael do. Finally finally, the house dey unanimous say the title, “Voices”, no do the short tory justice. We been all suggest make him change am to “No More” and him ma talk say yes, he like the new title pass the old one.

The meeting finally break up with Mrs. Joseph reading a poem from inside her novel “Jiji” and then Stephanie read poem called “White Devils.”

I don tire, but I don try nack una small of JosANA plenty plenty tory.

NB: It is quite exhilarating to write in pidgin though sometimes it breaks down when you try to find a pidgin equivalent for an English turn of phrase. I remember back when Nigerian writers were fascinated with the quest for mediums for their work with the high texts of that movement being KSW’s “Sozaboy” and Adaora Ulasi’s “Many Thing You No Understand.” Whatever happened to that? Nigerian letters, it would seem, is a rich graveyard of fads.


Richard Ugbede Ali is Secretary Genarl of Josana and inquiries may be made to rugbali@gmail.com or 08062392145.

The Fluorescence of JosANA

The Fluorescence of JosANA

For some reason, the word “ferment” has always fascinated me with its ambivalent Marxist undertone. For a long time, I heard it used in speech by campus demagogues and find myself checking up its meaning again for this article. Oxfords assures me that it still means “a state of social or political excitement . . .” Very fittingly, this word can best describe Jos ANA as it is now, something heading for its full bloom, a crescendo.

The last meeting of JosANA was held on Saturday 3rd, April 2008 at the Nigerian Film Institute, Jos and it began at exactly 1 p.m. with the arrival of the Ag. Secretary General, Richard Ali. The Chairman had made it known he would be unavoidable late but that the meeting should go on without him. {So Ali was Chairman for the day!} Already in the hall waiting eagerly were three members – Esther Chinke, winner of the 2007 Uyi Efeovbokan/ANA Plateau Prize for Poetry, our youngest member, Hamaya Frama Abraham and a new member, Patience Eguwrube who is an actress, a television producer/scriptwriter and is currently working on a book, fiction but one that concerns the Railways, a trip across Nigeria by rail. Pragmatic fiction? The retired but untired educationist, Silas Nnamonu, came in next with yet another new member, Amaka Dike, who seemed rather shy but soon enough the intellection of the house warmed her up. Gradually the hall filled up.

Everyone had had a more or less very busy fortnight and they shared the highlights of the preceding two weeks with the house; basically meetings, deadlines and preparing for exams.

The first reading was by Hamaya Abraham, {our youngest member at a little under seventeen years old}, who read the prolog from her unpublished first novel, “A Chest Of Letters”. It was a most fascinating piece of prose, especially from one so young; it suggested kinship with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s American classic, “The Celestial Railroad”. Mr. Jerome Dooga of the University of Jos claimed the honor of primus criticus {sic] and he first of all praised Hamaya for her effort – then he noted that she had trouble with her point of view which kept vacillating from an “omniscient” to a “third-person” voice and that, of course, is a critical no no. He suggested she try the “omniscient” narrative voice, as the “third person” did not seem to be working very well for her. Richard Ali, adding to Mr Dooga’s comments, said she had sometimes fallen into the error of breaking sentence syntax in a manner, which while might be acceptable in schoolgirl speech, did not work while writing of serious content, a novel no less. He also mentioned that while sometimes writing was didactic, it must not be “preachy {Dooga’s word}”; Ali said it is the novel, taken as a whole that should be didactic and not the authors voice within it. There were plenty of kind comments for Hamaya’s novel.

Next was read the first chapter of Michael Emeka’s draft novel, “The Divine Will”. The first chapter was the background of the story and an introduction of the major characters, a father and his son. The father was a ”soft spoken giant of a man who would only push back when he was forced to the wall” while the son “did not even need to be pushed a little” before unleashing the fury of a storm. The story is set in Eastern Nigeria, precisely in Abia State somewhere near Isialangwa. Michael Emeka’s reading was one of those that because of their sheer perfection, the admirable control of diction and story flow, there were no comments save those of praise. One can easily imagine that Chinua Achebe, if he were younger and still writing, would have approved of Michael’s work. Michael is the younger brother of noted Jos City novelist, Alpha Emeka.

During the reading of Michael’s work, the Chairman, Allen A. Omale, arrived with his pretty wife, Rahmah. The Chairman had attended the Achebe Colloquium held at Nsukka and he proceeded to give the gist of all that had happened. He also distributed the Nsukka program of events. He told us that Odia Ofeimun was there as well as other high priests of Nigerian writing. He told us about a certain Dr. Dennash from India whose paper advanced the thesis that the ruin of Okonkwo lay squarely with Nnoka, his father. It was in the desire not to be like Nnoka that the seed of Okonkwo’s tragedy is firmly planted. Considering that Nnoka has erstwhile been considered a ‘minor’ character in “Things Fall Apart”, this thesis was well received by the house. Strangely, the Jos based playwright, Paul Ugbede had advanced the very same thesis to this writer privately three weeks before. This reinterpretation of Nnoka’s role seems to be largely beholden on the psychoanalysis of Okonkwo and it is tribute much to the credit of our own bard, Chinua Achebe.

But Chinua Achebe was not around for his own colloquium.

The Chairman however informed us that ANA Lagos had come with a larger-than-life painting of the bard by which those aspiring to “bard-hood” {including our lucky Chairman!} could have their picture taken. The Chairman also showed us a clip he made of Nigerian writers during their pilgrimage to Chinua Achebe’s old house at the University of Nigeria Staff Quarters. Our lucky chairman also had his picture taken touching the brick of the house reverentially. Our own Professor of Creative Writing, Kanchana Ugbabe, presented a paper at Nsukka that was very well received. The Chairman however expressed sadness with the dilapidated state of infrastructure at the University of Nigeria and indeed the generally deplorable state of the roads in Southeastern Nigeria, Nsukka particularly. Mr. Nnamonu, whose village is just twenty kilometers from Nsukka, lamented this and wondered why things were still so bad in the Southeast so many decades after the Civil War. Some of those roads are federal roads and the University is a federal University. He said that in one country, no one area should be put at a disadvantage. JosANA members generally concurred and we hope that the FGN would do something about UNN, which is a national university and without which, together with Ibadan, Ife and Zaria, the history of Nigeria cannot be properly told.

Chimamanda Adichie’s family lived in the same house that Chinua Achebe lived in at Nssuka and it was wondered if they had slept in the same room. “Not at the same time,” Mr. Nanamonu wittily interjected. As we say up here, “da haka ne, da magana ya kare”. Were it otherwise, the issue {the genesis of her literary talent} would have been put to rest!

Another new member who came fully prepared was Babajide Agboola. He came with a poem and an excerpt from a play but was only able to read the poem. It was a poem about the sabotaging of the environment and it was the first poem read at JosANA on that theme for a very long time now. However, it came under critical fire from Mr. Dooga who commended the theme but nonetheless condemned the prosaic nature of the poem. Richard Ali said there was a little less poetry in the poem than the poem required. This unleashed another storm as a debate started, following Mr. Dooga’s assertion that there were ‘basics’ of poetry that cannot be deviated from. Patricia wanted to know whether these basics are those of technique or content. Though not unanimously, the house agreed that it was the basic of technique, a poem without a metaphor, or rhythm at least, cannot be a poem. The Dissenting Party held that if the content was profound and written in verse, it was poetry. Jide, whose reading had sparked the row, said “Art is best interpreted by the artist”, a platitude worthy of Oscar Wilde even when one {me} does not agree with it, especially in the context of that particular debate.

Somehow, the house got talking about short stories, how “short” {or longly short abi} they can be. Richard Ali came to this, corroborated by his British Council Radiophonics compadres, that indeed a short story could be as short as one line. He gave the example of Katherine Atkinson’s -

“It can’t be; I’m a virgin.”

- much to the enjoyment of the House.

The new member, Amaka Dike, who had by now overcome her shyness read an excerpt from her unpublished novel. The novel is also set in Southeastern Nigeria. It was a situation of Nwabuife and her suitors. Her use of language was so controlled that I can stake my last Bic Biro that she will be the next great Igbo female writer {watch out, Chimamanda!}. It was one of those reading that elicit only critical praise.

Richard Ali read two poems, “Lady Butterfly” and “Suite of Blue” and opened the floor to another round of critical appraisal. Steve Rwang Pam, the Country music crooner and radio personality, said the poem reminded him of another JosANA when he and Allen were still underdogs, that Ali’s poems reminded him of the things Allen used to write back then and which brought him {Allen] into the eye of philistinic storm. Most people loved the poems and Chairman Allen commented on Ali’s unusual use of simile. A new member and first timer, Ajih Gabriel, also a poet, asked Ali to explain the second stanza of “Suite of Blue” –

A lynched cat swings with dead eyes
Popping educated and too late knowing
The singularity of its day, I pass on
I pass on, leaving some of me behind.

Ali said that the dominant idea regarding cats is that of their ‘nine lives’; but “if I take a gun and shoot a cat, or take a rope and string it up, what happens? The cat dies. Imagine the cat who all the while thought it had nine lives. You grow old and things happen to you and you start wondering whether you are happy or not and what it mans to so be.” Mr. Nnamonu asked why Ali did not use or sparingly used commas and other sentence complements in his poems, to which Richard Ali replied that he heard a personal rhythm in the lines of his poems and that rhythm did not necessarily and indeed is more often than not outraged by the insertion of commas, full stops and the rest of that butting family.

Allen Omale, in a reminiscence brought about by Ali’s “Lady Butterfly”, read a poem from years back, before his marriage, “The Heart is an Organ of Fire”. It was a fine poem, love, but not profane love. It was deeply moving and well received. Allen Omale said sadly that he knew he was incapable of writing such a poem now after all the years, so many things had happened. The house contributed variously to this statement about the spontaneity of poetry and how when you do not write a poem at its own sacred time, you cannot write it again.

Poe3 is the most sacred of all the arts and the poet is something of a prophet in the service of an awesome god, arbitrary in its power and resolute in its finality.

Barrister Redzie Jugo, disciple of Prof. Victor Dugga, the playwright, read a short story, “The Divorce.” It was a court situation with a judge, who disliked drunks and drinking, faced with the case of a man who has beaten his wife to pulp and she was petitioning for divorce. The man, drunk as a lord, interrupts the proceeding with “Mr. Judge, my name is Chuwang Pam and nor ‘Mr. Man’ and you know my name is Chuwang Pam because you, father, gave me that name.” It was just under 600 words and was as punchy as they come.

Barrister Jugo also recently won the top prize, a laptop computer, in a reality TV show called “Shine Plateau Youth” put together by the Youngstars Foundation in collaboration with the British Council.

The meeting ended after that and everyone got together to take a group picture.

Back to ‘ferment’. JosANA is in a state of intense ferment right now and anyone who has been around for a while knows that ‘revolution’ is the next thing; in the case of Nigeria, there is an intellectual revolution afoot comprising foot soldiers {pun intended} who are here on the ground and are increasingly making themselves relevant within the national space. The early Christians in their catacombs were in ferment. The flower of Christianity and its still ongoing revolution of international politics and history is the result of that.

Bow your necks and spread at the fluorescence of JosANA.








Richard Ugbede Ali is Ag. Secretary General of JosANA.

Buddha Child and A Dark Ghazal {Poems}

Dreadlocked child sitting amidst
The fleeting cinema of urban feet
Child in Buddhic squat, palms between thighs
Folded correctly

Forlorn on a city pavement
They do not see you, mendicant child
But I do

And I know you too are on your way
Maybe you’ll be a rasta someday

Buddha Child


Infernal pointsman destroying space-time
Shattering science in a million frissons of glass
This is the end of the fury – the mad scribbling
The chill of waiting to pen perfect roses

Whirlwinds rage on, but I am innocent of dust
My imperfect lines throb as if they still live
The market still pulses with life

I tell you
Fortitude and solitude are one
The same with wine and women and art
Cold mistresses teasing flames in temples
Parched with thinking, longing
And forgetting

So
Life shatters into a million frissons
And I step out into the light
Killing the man in the mirror.

A Dark Ghazal