The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science and humanities journals.   This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan State University Library. Find more at: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/

Available through a partnership with

Scroll down to read the article.

the Relevanceof a Vision

Christopher Okigbo, a major voice in the second generation ofNigerian poets, wrote for just a period of ten years withinwhich he made a significant contribution to African poetry inEnglish expression. A casualty of the Nigerian Civil War, he leftonly one book of poetry entitled Labyrinths, an importanthistorical testament, for the world to remember him by.

he volume, apoeticization of hispersonal experi-ence, of the chaotichistory of Nigeriafrom the attainmentof political inde-pendence in 1960to the outbreak of

the Nigerian Civil War (1967-70), and of thecollective experience of Africans in and outof colonialism, is conceived as 'a fable ofman's perennial quest for fulfilment.' Thequest is multidimensional. It is at once artis-tic, cultural, economic, religio-metaphysi-cal, romantic, and socio-political. The poeticidiom for its expression is primarily mythicaland secondarily paradoxical. The poet's pre-occupation, the central theme of all litera-ture, is the vegetation myth which dovetailswith the myth of eternal return.

Cyclic in design, the journey motif projectsthe poet-protagonist, an Everyman figure, asa seeker after elusive truth. Every soul is apilgrim in the world and suffers the anguishof existence which issues out of the three-pronged alienation from the godhead, fromsociety and from oneself. Metaphor for thesolitude of being litter the pages of Laby-rinths. Okigbo explores both external andinternal dimensions of separation, which in-

variably results in loss of personal integrityand cultural unity. The confusion being ex-perienced in Africa is only of degree, not ofkind, different from the burden of separationwith which all humanity is afflicted. For asplit personality for whom all things havefallen apart on all fronts and who conse-quently suffers the disease of unease, theonly possible choice is the quest for oneness,the integration of self and essence. The returnof the prodigal to mother Idoto is a necessity.Okigbo images existential unease in ThePassage as standing on one leg, telling 'thetangled-wood-tale' (p.4). The passage itselfis an apt metaphor for the life-death con-tinuum, a bewildering journey through thebesetting wood of an incomprehensible world.It is, for the poet, neither cyclic nor linear,neither Occidental nor Oriental, but essen-tially labyrinthine. The labyrinth metaphorcaptures the complexity and disorder of con-temporary experience not only in Africa butin the whole world. Okigbo gives expressionto an all-embracing vision of fallen humanitystriving perpetually to gather up its dismem-bered parts and recover its lost essence.

Poetry is conceived by Okigbo as ritual, or,as a sacred duty that demands total commit-ment. It speaks a cultic language that can beunderstood only by the initiate. This concep-tion of poetry partly accounts for the arcane

nature of his poetry. Even the poetry of life iscomprehended by only a tiny percentage ofhumanity! The poems themselves are con-ceived as sacrificial offerings to the poet'sgoddess or Muse in more or less the samemanner that man is presented in Christianityas a living sacrifice to God. Okigbo disclosedthat the 'new laid egg' and the 'white hen atmidterm' in 'Lustra' were actually new po-ems that he had just written in his officialcapacity as the priest of Idoto. He is truly avisionary poet: a poet-prophet. Enhancingthe ritual character of his poetry is the use ofrepetition and variation. One recurrent im-age or personage takes on diverse identities.Mother Idoto, for example, appears vari-ously as a 'water-maid', as a 'white god-dess', as a 'lioness', and as a 'white queen'.Negritudinists should note that, as used bythe poet, 'white' means 'light'. In construct-ing his monument of words, the poet playsexcessively with forms, especially geomet-ric forms. His Labyrinths leaves traces of amovement in the direction of archi-writing.

Okigbo overcomes the anxiety of influencethat hampers the art of many Africanpastoralists and freely echoes other writers -Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, NathanielHawthorne, Gabriel Okara, Wole Soyinka,W.R. Greg, EzraPound.... The list isendless.He is a Modernist poet through and through.

35

His Limits, he declared, 'was influenced byeverything and everybody.... It is surprisinghow many lines of the Limits I am not sureare mine and yet do not know whose linesthey were originally. But does it matter?'1 Itwould matter only to narcissists and hypo-critical purists. The extensive borrowings nodoubt detract enormously from the quality ofthe poet's originality, but they reinforceEliot's stated position that literary creativityis an operation that involves both traditionand the individual talent. Literary echoesstrengthen Okigbo's rhetorical power andshow that he feeds from the same fountainthat nourishes masters of the art. His Laby-rinths can claim its own wherever poetry isdiscussed.

Conceived as 'logistics', poetry for Okigbois a serious business which requires a lot ofdiscipline, careful planning, mathematicalprecision, rigorous training, constant self-criticism, and hard imaginative thinking. Aperson who cannot perceive similarities wherethere are none or put riotous entities in goodorder cannot be a competent poet. The sub-ject of Labyrinths is the making of poetry. Arecord of the growth of Okigbo's poeticsensibility from the inchoate stage of a neo-phyte ('the young bird at the passage') (p.4)through that of 'a shrub among the poplars'(p.24), the talkative 'weaverbird' of SirenLimits, to the mature stage of the 'town-crier' with an 'iron bell' (p.67), it enumeratesthe different phases of the journey into crea-tivity, the inevitable accidents or failures had('the errors of the rendering', pp. 8-9), theatonements or sacrifices made, and the briefecstasy-laden epiphany of fulfilment, whichis the true reward for every creative artist.

A poets' poet, Okigbo presses Labyrinthsinto the service of defining the nature ofpoetry and of teaching the techniques and theprocess of verse-making. It is no surprise,therefore, that he influences tremendouslythe imagination and craft of many a third-generation Nigerian poet, yet one searches invain for a first book of poetry among theworks of the generation that is comparable inbeauty of expression, tightness of structureand largeness of vision to Okigbo's Laby-rinths. His is the lyrical type of poetry thatperpetually strains to appropriate music,which perhaps explains its preponderance ofauditory images and musical terms. Truly,poets are failed musicians! Okigbo's poetryreads like a convoluted and enthralling musi-cal score composed not for analysts whowould destroy its beauty but for good listen-ers with supersensitive ears. It is replete withimages of colour, light, smell, and touchwhich combine with those of sound to send

the mind into a trance-like state where thepoet-persona loses a sense of self and be-comes simply an unconscious medium pour-ing forth imperishable truths. Beguiled andbewitched, the hearer forgets his controls,falls into a love swoon and is tenderly raped.

The critical reception of Okigbo's poetry hasbeen paradoxical: a mixture of condemna-tion and praise. The technical strategies thatare most celebrated in the poetry, for exam-ple, the sacrifice of limpidity of meaning andstyle in an attempt to perfect form and achievea rare lyricism, are ironically the most vili-fied. However recondite the poetry may ap-pear to detractors, it is not bereft of humaninterest or meaning. In Christopher Okigbo:Creative Rhetoric Sunday O. Anozie re-marks the sustained tension between aes-thetic and human concerns in Labyrinths.

The authors of Toward the Decolonization ofAfrican Literature are rather too hasty ininveighing against the Ibadan-Nsukka schoolof Nigerian poetry to which Okigbo belongs.Their criticism of African poetry exhibits alot of misprision. Contrary to their interpre-tation,2 the thundering of cannons in palmgroves does not constitute an act of desecra-tion, for it functions like music to spur on thespirits of the dead and elevate those of theircelebrating descendants to the point of pos-session for the desired re-union. Okigbo'ssatirical parody of Catholic rituals and Chris-tian proselytization in Africa is likewise mis-understood. The critics even war against 'theheavy use of alliterations and assonanceswithin a line'. As Wole Soyinka rightly ob-serves, their prescription is bound to effectthe death of poetry.3 Okot p'Bitek's com-plaint that generally critics do not understandSong ofLawino and Song ofOcol, an impor-tant work for which Chinweizu, Jemie andMadubuike have nothing but praise, debunksthe argument of the troika that 'Poetry is nota puzzle.' The danger inherent in a poem thatputs on the mask of simplicity is that itssurface transparency can hinder a literalistimagination from discerning the profundi-ties that lie buried in it. The language ofpoetry is metaphorical and thus cannot but bedifficult. Linguistic abstruseness in poetry isa matter of degree. On the whole, Chinweizuand Company seem to be farther removedthan Okigbo and other members of the Ibadan-Nsukka school of Nigerian poetry from theAfrican oral poetic traditions. To resurrectpoetry in English in Nigeria and prevent itfrom further sliding into prose, there is nobetter model to follow than the best of theschool. Fortunately, Niyi Osundare, anotherleading voice in Nigeria for a new poeticsthat is grounded in clarity of expression and

thought, has realised the danger in unmask-ing verse and making it transparent and isgradually moving towards an increased sub-tlety of tone. He now not only sates thepleasure of paradox, he explores in depth theseeming of art, revels in ambiguity, and con-torts his syntax. His wordplay and otherrhetorical devices get more intricate and moredemanding. One can only hope that his ar-dent followers will recognise the change inthe revolutionary process of returning wordsto their poetic and rhetorical sources andborrow a leaf from his fine example.

In The Trial of Christopher Okigbo," Ali A.Mazrui tries and convicts the poet for sup-porting Biafra and for privileging ethnic poli-tics over his primary commitment to art andall humanity. Ironically, it is precisely in thePostscript, Path of Thunder, where the poetopts for revolutionary violence that he trulycomes home, both stylistically and themati-cally. He casts off his plastic universalistmask and speaks in a personal voice that isreadily accessible to the Nigerian readingpublic. The section is rid of all obtrusiveclassical and foreign allusions and is suf-fused instead with local imagery. Some ofthe lines are local apophthegms, indigenousidiomatic expressions and proverbs re-phrased. Okigbo, who started his writingcareer denouncing 'platform poetry' and ra-cially determined art in favour of aestheticcriteria and universal literary standards, be-comes a war propagandist and uses poetry asa popular medium for expressing pressingsocio-political issues. The same Okigbo whosaid 'I don' t read my poetry to non-poets'5

becomes a 'town-crier'. Finding poetry inad-equate in resolving the national question, hedropped his pen, picked up his gun, and diedfighting what he believed was a just cause.He prefigures his own death and pleads in atrenchant tone:

O mother mother Earth, unbind me;let this be

my last testament; let this beThe ram's hidden wish to the sword's

secret prayer to the scabbard - (p.71)

Ali Mazrui's conclusion that 'Africa cannotafford too many Okigbos' whose poems are'untranslatable' - as though some poemswere translatable - and who make more mu-sic than meaning6 evinces a thorough misun-derstanding of the essence and proper func-tion of verse. The myth made of the turgidityof his poetry probably trips Okigbo intomaking the following retort which tends tolend credence to the fallacy that much ofLabyrinths is pleasurable bunkum: I don'tthink I have ever set out to communicate a

36

meaning. It is enough that I try to communicate experi-ence which I consider significant.7 The simple axiom isthat there is no form without content.

It is in delineating the economic, political and socialcharacter of the new African nations that Okigbo'svision is perhaps most relevant. It is possible to read thewhole of Labyrinths as one long threnody on the Afri-can tragedy. The mourners with 'SILENT FACES atcrossroads' (p.5) can be assimilated to Africans, espe-cially Black Africans, who lament the destruction oftheir land by foreigners and the resultant psychic diso-rientation and socio-cultural fragmentation. The dis-possessed and powerless people who are portrayed as a'long black/column of ants' mourn the death of theirmother: their world (p.5). The threnody is resumed bythe Silent Sisters in their 'swan song' of diverse melo-dies: 'We carry in our worlds that flourish/Our worldsthat have failed....' (p.41).

Some anthropologists and ethnologists argue that thedestruction of African culture is not complete. Okigboseems to agree with Janheinz Jann who posits in Muntu:An Outline of Neo-African Culture* that what is goingon in Africa is not the wholesale abandonment of theindigenous way of life for the foreign but a process ofcultural integration, for

The Sunbird sings againWhere the caress does not reach,

of Guernica,On whose canvas of blood,The slits of his tonguecling to glue... (p.35)

If the Sunbird, like the mythical phoenix, resurrects andsings again, then, the cancelling out of the indigenousworld view is not complete.

'Fragments out of the Deluge' laments the Europeanimperialist exploitation of the human and material re-sources of Africa and the colonial conquest. The colo-nisation of the continent is imaged as a deluge thaterodes the very foundation of African societies, for the'gods lie in state', abandoned and unsung (p.34). Thepoet represents the possessors of power who rape Africaand violate her gods and goddesses as predatory eaglesin whose talons young birds wobble and utter the cry ofdeath. The use of animal images to express the poet'svision of Social Darwinism signifies that Western civi-lization or industrial capitalism is cannibalistic and itspurveyors are savages.

The attainment of Independence by African countriesdoes not change their dependency status. The sufferingof the people continues unabated. The dream of Inde-pendence fades, another 'big white elephant...'(p.26)'Lament of the Drums', a song of exile, depicts theparlous state into which Nigeria has fallen. It thematizesthe rape of democrat v by the military and their oppor-tunistic civilian collaborators, the perversion of justice,the underdevelopment of the country through the wan-ton waste of her human and material resources, and the

overall degeneration of the land. The elegy ends with:

The wailing is for the Great River:

Her pot-bellied watchersDespoil her... (p.50)

The river, of course, is the Niger from which the countryderives its name. The ellipsis indicates that the destruc-tion of the land shall be a continuous process. As aptlypredicted by the poet, the Nigerian Armed Forces thatare supposed to protect the land lay siege to it, fall uponits fat like robbers, and strip the people of their laughter.Okigbo brings back the image of the predatory eagles in'Elegy for Alto' to express the idea of a second conquest,but this time around the usurpation comes from within:

THE EAGLES have come again,The eagles rain down on us -

POLITICIANS are back in giant hidden steps ofhowitzers, of detonators, (p. 71).

The neo-colonial African politician - civilian or military- continues with the structures of exploitation and privi-lege erected by the white conquerors in the colonialperiod. Although Okigbo hailed and praised the archi-tects of the first military putsch in Nigeria, the Majors'coup-of January 15, 1966, he recognised the danger inthe Armed Forces perceiving themselves as politiciansand warned the self-acclaimed saviours against thetemptation to loot the nation's treasury and therebycommit the mistakes of civilian politicians. He intones:

Alas! the elephant has fallen -Hurrah for thunder -

But already the hunters are talking about pumpkins:If they share the meat let them remember thunder.

The eye that looks down will surely see the nose;The finger that fits should be used to pick the nose.

Today - for tomorrow, today becomes yesterday:How many million promises can ever fill a basket...(p.67)

It is fruitless counting the number of military coups -botched or successful - that have been reported inNigeria. The same facile explanation of saving thepeople from themselves and from evils ofmaladministration and economic mismanagement andreturning the country onto the path of true democracy isproffered by the coup plotters. It is sad to note that thepromise has so far remained unfulfilled. The interven-tion of the military in the politics of the nation is a totaldisaster. The most urgent task that confronts the Nige-rian people is how to deliver their country from thedeath-clutch of its greedy Armed Forces.

The joy that attends the poet's homecoming, like theephemeral euphoria at Independence, is deceptive andironic. Correctly apprehended, it is the joy of freedom

37

Scene from Nigerian Civil War front at Owaza on Ozuakwu Koad, July, 1969.

from being. The poet's homecoming is celebrated interms that suggest the Worship of Death:

Death herself,the chief celebrant,in a cloud of incense,paring her finger nails...

At her feet rolled their heads like cut fruits;She bathed her knees in the blood of attendants;her smock in entrails of ministrants... (p.55)

The images remind us of the pogrom in which thou-sands of Igbo people lost their lives in the Northern partof the country and the waste of lives during the CivilWar. Nigeria is portrayed as mother-earth that con-sumes her own children but, unlike earth-mother, thecountry continually fails to profit from the promise ofprocreation and regeneration and, therefore, remains awaste land. The picture of a hecatomb and horror isrelatively the same for most post-Independence statesof Africa. Carnage, a regular feature in modern Africanhistory, continues to rage in Algeria, Liberia, Rwandaand Somalia. The continent bleeds and bleeds againfrom self-inflicted wounds, as if to prove the veracity ofYambo Ouologuem's thesis that she is bound to vio-lence. Her poetry is an unbroken paean to Moloch. Thepoet's homecoming reminds us of Thomas Carlyle'sWorship of Sorrow. The current political debacle inNigeria is a re-enactment in its horrendous detail of thetragic events that led the country to the path of war in the

late sixties. The detention of M. K. O. Abiola, theacclaimed winner of the June 12 1993 presidentialelection, is analogous to the imprisonment of ObafemiAwolowo on treasonable felony charges. 'Both parts ofSilences', Okigbo wrote in the Introduction to Laby-rinths, 'were inspired by the events of the day. Lamentof the Silent Sister, by the Western Nigeria Crisis of1962, and the death of Patrice Lumumba; Lament of theDrums by the imprisonment of Obafemi Awolowo, andthe tragic death of his eldest son.' (p. xii)

It is not an exaggeration to assert that Nigeria's seasonof anomy started barely two years after her attainment ofpolitical Independence. Despite the long period of doom,there is still not even a shadow in the horizon of thepossibility of relief for the suffering of the people. Theflowers of the nation, the minorities, and the multitudesof pariahs - all aliens in their own land, like'the drums'(the ancestors) - 'sense/ With dog-nose a Babyloniancapture' (p.46) and shriek in the agony of despair as theylament daily their predicament and watch their sup-posed protectors usurp their being, make a mockery oftheir sacrifice, and stifle their seeds to death. They eitherembrace revolutionary violence, as Okigbo did, or con-tinue to moan in despair, or go into exile. It is thus clearthat the-dream of freedom is still a tantalising mirage asNigeria persists in treading the path of thunder:

BEYOND the iron path careering along the samebeaten track -

38

.THE GLIMPSE of a dream lies smouldering in acave,

together with the mortally wounded birds.Earth, unbind me; let me the prodigal; (p.72)

The poet-pilgrim's journey, like the trajectory of theouroborus (the tail-chewing creation snake), ends whereit began. Homecoming is represented as another peril-ous journey into exile. Its orgasmic twitch is indistin-guishable from anguish, for its pleasure is painful.Labyrinths ends with this vision of cyclic paradox, orthe myth of the eternal return:

AN OLD STAR departs, leaves us here on the shoreGazing heavenward for a new star approaching;The new star appears, foreshadows its goingBefore a going and coming that goes on forever...

(p.72)

An abiku* country, Nigeria yearns for release from thetragic cycle of fate. Thematically, therefore, Okigbo'sLabyrinths shall continue to be of immediate cultural,economic and political relevance to posterity for as longas the paradox of existence symbolised by mother Idoto,the principle of birth and death and growth and decay,proves insoluble for mankind in general and for Afri-cans, especially Nigerians, in particular. Structurallyand stylistically, the work shall stand as a monumentalchallenge to fledgling poets and serve as a reminder of

the character of Modernist poetics and of the nature andprocess of verse production to the present and comingages. GR

ENDNOTES

1 'Transition Conference Questionnaire', Transition, II, 5 (July-August 1962), 12.

2 Chinweizu, et al. Toward the Decolonization of African Literature,Vol. 1 (Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1980), 192.

3 Wole Soyinka, 'Aesthetic Illusions: Prescriptions for the Suicide ofPoetry,' Art, Dialogue and Outrage (Ibadan: New Horn Press, 1988),pp. 86-109.

4 Ali Mazrui, The Trial of Christopher Okigbo (London: Heinemann,1971), p. 176.

5 Bloke Modisane. "The Literary Scramble for Africa', West Africa(30 June 1962), p. 176.

6 Ali Mazrui, 'Meaning Versus Imagery in African Poetry,' PresenceAfricaine, no. 66 (2nd quarterly 1968), p. 57.

7 Cited by Annemarie Heywood, "The Ritual and the Plot: The Criticand Okigbo's Labyrinths', Research in African Literatures, vol. 9, no.I, (Spring 1978), 51-52.

8 Janhetnz Jahn, Muntu: An Outline of Neo-African Culture, trans.Majorie Grene (London: Faber and Faber, 1959).

9 A wanderer child that dies early in life and returns several times toplague its mother. It is a metaphor for cyclic progression. All nationalcorporations and institutions in Nigeria, including the governmentitself, behave like abiku.

AN OLD STARdeparts, leaves ushere on the shore

Gazing heavenwardfor a new star

approaching; Thenew star appears,

foreshadowsits going

Before a going andcoming that goes

on forever...Mrs. Obi Okigbo - Dati with daughter Sophia Dati

39