Nigeria. Ezenwa-Ohaeto. Contemporary Nigerian Poetry and the Poetics of Orality.
Gibbs, James
Ezenwa-Ohaeto. Contemporary Nigerian Poetry and the Poetics of
Orality. Bayreuth, Ger. Bayreuth University. 1998. 182 pages. $54.95
($29.90 paper). ISBN 3-927510-58-0 (46-7 paper).
Following the publication by James Currey Ltd of a very commendable
biography of Chinua Achebe (1997; see WLT 72:3, p. 671), Ezenwa-Ohaeto
has now shown his versatility by producing a three-part study of
"the body of poetry works produced in Nigeria in the
eighties," in which he concentrates on "the manifestation of
the poetics of orality." After providing an introduction titled
"Towards a Poetics of Orality," the author offers the reader a
"Survey of Orality" and then, in two sections, a gallop
through some of the authors who were published during the eighties. The
volume is, however, a disappointment.
Ezenwa-Ohaeto justifies his concentration on a particular decade by
writing, "It must be noted that the period of the eighties was a
period of great intellectual ferment," and by asserting,
unconvincingly, that "the feeling in the air was akin to the
feeling in the sixties, shortly before and after independence."
Despite his claims for the qualities of the decade, the critic does not
limit himself to the eighties. He contrives to accommodate some, such as
Tanure Ojaide, who published extensively during the seventies (Children
of the Iroko appeared in 1973), and others, such as Molara
Ogundipe-Leslie, who had begun to make a mark in the sixties but who,
for one reason or another, did not assemble a volume of her work at that
time.
The bibliography lists few anthologies, generally disregards poems
in literary journals, and has no references to work that appeared in the
daily press. Even more damagingly, it omits gramophone records, tapes,
CDs-a great pity since those poets who were the keenest to communicate
orally booked into studios and negotiated contracts with recording
companies. One wonders why the work of Anikulapo Kuti was not
considered, and surmises that it might have been-if only it had appeared
in an elegantly printed volume.
The scope of the volume, the quality of the writing, and the
construction of the argument are deficient. The quotations from the
first page of the book that I incorporated into my opening paragraph are
symptomatic of the stylistic clumsiness which marks much that follows.
Do we really need "poetry works" and the repetition of
"period" and "the feeling?" A critical analysis that
moves, as Ezenwa- Ohaeto's quickly does, into the troubled area of
style must be presented in opaque prose that does not draw attention to
itself-and this cannot be said for the manner in which Contemporary
Nigerian Poetry is written. Many will note with concern the substitution
of "would" for "will" in numerous constructions. The
habit seems to have become part of Nigerian English, even of the English
in which literary critics express themselves. The late, lamented Ken
Saro-Wiwa-whose poetry, incidentally, rates only just over a page in
Ezenwa-Ohaeto's study-waged a war against the local usage. In his
absence, who will take up the challenge?
By the time I had read and reread the Bayreuth text, pages were
coming away from the spine. Not for the first time in my experience of
the African Studies Series, the finish proved inadequate, and, sad to
say, the book is not robust enough to be recommended for library
purchase. In this case, the physical shortcomings complement the
imperfect scholarship: the book does not approach the quality of the
same author's book on Achebe, perhaps because of a lighter
editorial touch.
James Gibbs
University of the West of England, Bristol
