Tanure Ojaide is a prolific Nigerian poet and writer. He is noted for his unique stylistic vision. He has won Ojaide has won major national and international poetry awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Africa Region (1987), the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award (1988), twice the All-Africa Okigbo Prize for Poetry and thrice the Association of Nigerian Authors’ Poetry Prize. In 2016, Ojaide was awarded the Fonlon-Nichols Award at the 42nd annual African Literature Association (ALA) conference in Atlanta, USA. He is the author of Songs of Myself: Quartet, shortlisted for the 2017 NLNLG Prize for Literature
Song of Myself
The minstrel swears by his pen he loves her one hundred and ten percent.
She says she is not sure of that but satisfied with what she’s given as her share.
The muse repeats to the minstrel he is a goat and at best a dog, the minstrel does not call the muse animal names, goat or bitch.
He swears there’s no sweetness anywhere else except her fleshpots;
she says un-hun and does not believe at all in the oath of the pen.
She believes he is capable of declaring every fleshpot the sweetest
and she’s not sure the song of adoration pours from his heart or craft;
he’s frustrated that the muse does not take his sacrifice for such and she continues to say the goat will be goat the dog will be dog.
He does not call her names as she calls him from an array of animals;
he thinks a goat can be a goat without being goatish, a dog but not doggy.
To her the goat will continue to defecate even as he walks on the street,
the dog will always be distracted by the smell of bitches along his way.
He calls her wahala which she accepts he has caused her to be;
she asks him, “you think say I dey craze or I no get head?”
He only laughs and responds not to the crazy question;
he knows jealousy can drive one in a mindless course, no head.
They bicker night and day but in between episodes of fracas
they share the sweetest fruit that grows out of love on earth.
As the drunkard walks along, observers note his zigzag gait.
The world hears thunder reverberate with deafening echoes.
The man thinks of the cow he slaughtered for the woman
whom others would not give even a chicken for a feast.
He forgets the butterfly does not refuse flattery of its flowery feathers;
the bird preening her feathers to show off beauty needs praise-songs.
The beautiful one thinks her fidelity to an un-appreciating one is futile when serenaded from all corners with songs that make her head swell;
she forgets the ram does not reject compliments of his gnarled horns.
The keeper of the gate needs recognition to stand firmer than ever.
They hear that man and woman are always bickering night and day
but they are such creatures that cannot live without each other;
no-one is there when they take the sting out of their tongues
and lose themselves in each other’s intoxicating sweetness.
No-one sees milk enter the coconut and make it the envy of juices;
you may never see snake partners together but they still make love.
There’s sweetness there if you search for it after the bitter streak
there’s so much abundance after to forget the long austere season.
Self-Defense
They say I am the loafer, the stay-at-home one
and everybody smacks me with terrible insults!
When the warrior chief’s home caught fire in his absence
I spotted it and alerted folks to stop the savage blaze;
when the wealthy farmer’s mother took ill and collapsed
I, the reviled loafer, the stay-at-home one, revived her.
They call me the town’s lazybones whose hands soft
like ripe bananas peel when I do the least hard work;
they call me the weak-kneed one so listless and feeble
I cannot jump across the creeks, what it takes to fish.
They say I haven’t the bile it takes in the liver
to kill a snake not to talk of catching snakefish,
they say I am like rock salt used in preparing dishes
and would melt and so cannot fish or farm in the rain
but sent on errands, town-crier of news all seasons.
I composed the chant that makes leopards of warriors;
in days of Biafra I spotted camouflaged saboteurs
before military intelligence recovered from rape orgies.
I compose lethal songs that at every udje festival
destroy boastful rivals and make us invincible warriors;
of course our performers always take credit for them
as those like me everywhere dispossessed and silenced.
I am abused as a school dropout but I am the one called
to read letters of the educated to their abandoned parents;
they abuse me for not yet marrying but I take care
of wives the rich leave behind in pursuit of money.
They say I am the loafer, the stay-at-home one
and everybody smacks me with terrible insults!