GREEN ROOM: LIVE WEBINAR TRANSCRIPT
Summary of the Discussion
There were peculiar beliefs trailing our African heritage that forbids certain human interference with nature. We were told stories of forbidden forests, trees that must not be cut down, animals exempted from poaching, and rivers esteemed as sacred. Our ancestors' farmlands would compulsorily be left fallow at some particular time of the year as tradition demands. Due to the dearth of scientific reasoning, we never asked why but followed these instructions to the letter. So far, so good, our adherence paid off as we barely recorded cataclysmic natural disasters.
For satisfactory answers and an in-depth analysis into this mysterious fact, find out more by downloading the audio, video or transcript of the webinar.
LISTEN TO PODCAST
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Professor Niyi Osundare is a prolific poet, dramatist and literary critic. He gained degrees at the University of Ibadan (BA), the University of Leeds (MA) and York University, Canada (PhD, 1979)
ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Tosin Gbogi is an assistant professor of English at Marquette University, specializing in popular cultures, Africana literatures, and critical race and ethnic studies.
Q & A
Tosin Gbogi: I think we will start the conversation now and I would like to open the conversation with a question on place and childhood and by this. I mean that you know you of course grew up in Ikere Ekiti, and we find this in your poetry. I remember that I traveled through that place. I think 2016 sometimes down 16, I was looking for the for the Rocks which one is Olosunta
Prof. Osundare: They saw you (laughs)
Tosin Gbogi: very good one. In the eyes of the earth for example one finds references to Oke Ubo, Abusoro, to Oke Eniju to Oke to Ogbese Odo and to Oke Roku. We also see like just said I will hear Olosunta we see and hear Oranle and we hear Eshidale. Now my question then is this how did the Ikere of your childhood or the Nigeria of your childhood shape the way we think about the earth and the writing that you do, they are eco- poetic activism.
Prof Osundare: I also say that the happiest years of my life where the years I was born 1947 and 1966 when Nigeria experienced her first coup d’état. Particularly 1960- 1966 Understood conveniently on our necks at this time. There were problems but we know better somehow there was most sanity and then after that things began to really fall apart. I have seen a little bit of the world and I can compare coaches and I will say that an African culture is extremely strong and Yoruba is part of it. There is a depth to Yoruba culture and language and relationships between other cultures and other languages in the country and on the continent and now our planet. For example every citizen had its own organization through all of the different activities. The kind of songs that went with dancing. My father was a farmer I grew up on the farm another. We'll call it Ara oko. I just want to put it that way a very proud Ara oko indeed and then the region was respecting indigenous religion one of the problems. One of the causes of a crisis in Africa today I think is the Takeover of our indigenous selves by Islam and Christianity Yoruba Culture, Yoruba cosmology are really rooted in the this plus That kind of plastic that has access to it happened that when this religion came. Oh, no. Oh, it's a weak now that has caused a lot of problem. All the artworks because in Africa culture and religion. The artists have to do is leave him each of the Orisa were thrown out because they were called Idols as our Idols a Catholic practice. Those idols were civilized. Respect for the forest disappeared as I saw him one of the invitations to this program. There were secret forests in those days the imbrue God intends for the furnace has its own some time researching now the forest what actually made the trees had its own identity. So I grew up with all the songs Egungun Festival, Osanyin Festival, and Osun of course. All this things contributed to the way I saw the world. I have never encountered anything more poetic than those. So when you talk about poetry you'd only go out is surrounded by it naming ceremony, Marriage ceremony, Ekun Iyawo there were all there Okay? Yeah. Yeah. Take another look at Wole Soyinka’s Works another look at Chinua Achebe’s works. A lot of what we do without the culture and of course without diminishing the impact of what has come from abroad in doing this and that not this instead of that. “Me loluwa wi” as the Yoruba say the sky is wide enough for a thousand birds to fly without clashing unless some are unnecessarily greedy. I think I'm stronger because I have added Western ways of doing things and so on to my own Yoruba ways of doing them. Now I have to substitute what’s coming from our side they reached the Poetry of it. It is in our backyard which is bedroom. It's in the kitchen. It's in the song we sing to welcome the new moon, is the song when we see a beautiful flower.
Tosin Gbogi: Thank you very much for that response, In your recent work you moved towards a new kind of the color value called differential Aesthetics and I was thinking because in that paper you were talking about art and politics and how Western understanding of Aesthetics would you know mean that you know, you don't combine both, you know, I kind of think that you also find It is selected poems in 2002 selected poems. So I was so this kind of material that you put in your poetry, some critics consider this essentialism. How do you balance the how do you respond to that?
Prof. Osundare: Thank you Very much, yes differential Aesthetics Yeah This is an idea, It's not just theory it is a principle that rules my Enterprise even my creative Consciousness, differential. A Chinese poet writes differently from an American poet, An Indian poet writes differently from an Australian we are all writing poetry but from different cultural and social and political background. Yes German Harwich (name), also said let the thousand flowers bloom, but what I say with many of the so-called critics and theories especially in the western part of the world is let my flower bloom and takes over the whole earth. You should concur one little Village in France, some little village in America. I would say well now I have a little that covers all literature written everywhere every time in the world. That is ignorance it is first cousin of stupidity no critics African writers are always had for this problem with the critics especially Western critics. Socrates Aristotle, Plato those of course a great writers, those are a Great Fairy. Those are great thinkers. I'm happy that I know them. I know their Works. There are correspondences. I mean look at the ancient Hebrew culture and ancient Yoruba cultural, there are similarities because we are just human beings so problems arise when you compose your own theoretical and aesthetic judgment or what coming from other places.
Just one example, And I stand to be corrected Yoruba doesn't have and doesn't rely on any rhyming pattern which must come terminally in the poem a ABAB CD then it is not poem. Who told you that. What about what I called system rhythm mechanism. Yoruba is music, Igbo is music, Edo, Urhobo. Music is Africa. Go to the Congo they are doing music and poetry which birth appreciated those forms of music different types of different aesthetically and emotionally from this so I'm saying that yes let a thousand flowers bloom. Write enough poetry but have enough intelligence, have enough humility to know that not everybody in the world should create a poem or so do this sculpture or should do the painting that will match your own expectations and your own prejudices. Yes, differential aesthetics. In Yoruba you don’t say “Mo fe ka ewi but you say Mo fe kewi” I want to chant poetry, I want to sing poetry, I want to perform poetry. This is very important aspect call system rhythmicality. The music in it, how do we rarely handle it?
Tosin Gbogi: Thank you very much for that wonderful. I would like to bring in Dr. Chigbo Anyaduba who is an assistant professor in the University of Winnipeg.
Dr. Anyaduba: Thank you very much Tosin and thank you Professor.
Prof. Osundare: You're welcome.
Dr. Anyaduba: I particularly want to thank you for the incredible work you have been doing especially for the art. Some of your poems that I have been privileged to read have inspired me a lot so quickly regarding the subject of poetry and environment. I thought that one of the things your poems have done for me is to connect me much more to the world that I live in especially to the so-called natural environment or natural world. And even when some of these poems maybe morning humans that Devastation of the environment or cautioning against urination of the Earth or prophesying Doom against violence to the natural world. I see you manage to feel that sense of being included with awareness. So I need to go Consciousness, you know about environment. And I found it very fascinating the way yourself classified your work today into four movements, you know from paying homage to the Earth to morning the violence. Don't read the Earth and then to kind of the S retaliation or the consequences as you put it of human violence on the earth and then to admonition, you know, I'm still expecting the last poem. The first question concerns the General matter about writing and And we know that the people responsible especially for the destruction of the earth are not usually the ones who suffer the consequences at least the immediate consequences at the moment, right the Niger Delta in Nigeria to distill it has specifically the victims of the despoliation going on. They are the ones who have suffered from Earth's retaliation, right? So my question is Why does Earth not discriminates in its retaliation why do victims of the kinds of capitalist destruction of the environment still by represented as victims when he retaliates, you know your Katrina poems as an example in this regard, right? And my second question is a more General one, in all the years that you've been writing I think over 40-50 years. Now you'd be in writing all these cautionary walks, you know cautioning against environmental pollution in Nigeria. And in other parts of the world at the same time, the more you seem to write the more intensified the human violence against the world has Been I remember the you know, the roots have become worse and we harvest more corpses from Nigerian Roots more trees have been murdered and Iroko trees of my childhood that were the wonder of my childhood before it disappeared now, I grew up in Anambra states, right? So in all these years you still continue to write and lament these outcomes. How could your lines your poems still carry, beautiful Melodies and metaphors that Inspire fancy and some form of musical pleasure in the face of this continuous destruction than witness right? What kept you going in all these years? What did you think changed or give you an inkling of a difference, To make you unwavering in your continued advocacy for and environmental justice.
Prof. Osundare: Thank you very much doctor Anyaduba. I really appreciate it. It is a pity we are pressed for time the questions you have asked and also your comments could inspire a whole book and I really appreciate this. Why does Earth not to discriminate in its wrought? Yes. Because nature is ruled by its own logic is like the question I ask all the time when I see the wickedness that is being visited on people all over the world and the kind of really astonishing sufferings that we go through occasionally you ask how can God allow this to happen to his/her children.
That question we ask all the time but at the same time People say “Orun n yabo kii se wahala enikan” that is when the sky Is going to fall that is not the responsibility of only one person. In fact haven't finished the irony terrible irony about this is those who desolate the Earth those who plunder the Earth are In the position because of the wealth they have acquired, the loot they have scooped. They are in a position to protect themselves against the ravages and the consequences. So this are the illogicalities are facing. It is usually the homeless and the poor people who suffer, I must tell you that I have no answer to that because Katrina nearly killed my wife and me here everything we had on, you know was destroyed and also created two most terrible sinners in the world, you know, so what we should be doing is asking questions. Why should a few people do this and put the rest of us in Jeopardy? It is important for us to talk. It is important for us to work. That's what that 16 years old Swedish girl is asking us to do, no, we're not going to allow you to do this to us. Finally. Remember one or two statement is about we are just been doing this for so long and remember and one of my discussions with Chinua Achebe about three years before he died. We talked about this too. You know, I was teaching the novelist as teacher in our hopes and impediment and I asked Prof. and he laughed and he said we have been doing this for so long. What are we going to do? We cannot stop and there it “Ti ina o ba tan laso eje ki n tan leekanna” that is as long as there are lice in the hems of your garment there must be blood stains on your fingernails with the we have those fingernails, So we have to keep at it. Resilience this is it, In fact, one of the poems I was going to read this because I was pressed for time is titled stubborn hope and I have stolen that phrase from Dennis Brutus the great anti apartheid South African poet. I think one of his collections stubborn hope yes, our hope has to be stubborn. There is no giving up because we didn't inherit to this Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.
Dr. Anyaduba: Thank you very much.
Favourite Quote
“Tomorrow bids us tread softly, wisely, justly, lest we trample the eye of the Earth”
“When the sky says I am going to fall, that is not the responsibility of only one person”
Top Comments
"Always enlightening to hear Prof. Osundare ". - Ipadeola Tdae
Glad to join from Niyi Osundare International Poetry Festival @NOIPOFEST Team— NOIPOFEST
"Epic session tonight. An honour to put a live-face to the legend Niyi Osundare and also happy to see again the Icon Tosin Gbogi (Happy Birthday Sir).”- Olufunke Olabode
FURTHER READING
Niyi Osundare. The Eye of the Earth (1986, winner of a Commonwealth Poetry Prize and the poetry prize of the Association of Nigerian Authors).
Niyi Osundare. 2011. City Without People: The Katrina Poems.
