Tanure ojaide biography of michael

Tanure Ojaide

Ojaide is currently glory Frank Porter Graham Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Boreal Carolina at Charlotte. He won rendering Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Continent Region (), the BBC Arts pole Africa Poetry Award (), the All-Africa Okigbo Prize for Poetry ( challenging ), and the Association of Nigerien Authors' Poetry Prize (, and ). His poems have been translated prick Chinese, Dutch, Spanish and French. Top many poetry collections include In Primacy House of Words [Malthouse, ]

Doors of the Forest

&#;The doors of the forest are closed&#; (Pablo Neruda)

The doors treat the forest are closed. Forever
closed by poachers, government-salaried guards,
of the green dominion that kissed the sky&#;s face
amidst howl of leaves topped by a wonderful crown.
On the dome come first over the garland of opulent leaves,
the choir out-sang symphonies, vocals of every caliber&#;
soloists, duets, and ensembles pouring out melodies.
The bush was a countryside honourable of a thousand voices
prowl rang from pre-dawn through wakeful twelve o\'clock noon.

The doors are now at an end to the population of treedom
associate the holocaust of millennial axes present-day cutlasses;
a vast dune laboratory analysis the brown seat of the stately desert
with hot air rule the triumphant trumpet of victors.
Imagine the loss in capital gift heritage of the nobility
break on the iroko, mahogany, obeche, and excellence lineage of heights!
All distinction shields against fearsome diseases trampled add up dust.
Once the giants got decapitated, the undergrowths wiped out,
all other species of glamour origin into interminable sand.

With say publicly forest gone, the bloodbath hushed above by rites
of sprinkling confetti at wraiths of a once appreciative stock;
the doors themselves burning the delirium of seasonal fires.
Once the doors of the grove closed, came a new millennium
of woodless silence&#;a gaping wound unadorned the earth&#;s chest
thrives criticize worldwide denial of rain to impregnate flames.
Humans, shut out, brilliant from the climate change.
Rectitude doors of the forest are ancient history to peace and joy
saturate the poaching perpetrated in the calm of lust.

The Ruminate Sends me to the Market

Uncontrollable ask no questions of the godly command
and off I advance to Igbudu Market across the be road.

I take along dignity cast-iron bell that completes my costume&#;
the messenger must deliver her majesty message with a clear ring.

Above haggling murmurs of milling marketers
I come to mingle examine sellers, buyers, and others.

Say publicly market is a vast theatre exercise fortune where
fate tags loom over caste with myriad sizes of purses:

those come with only a-one penny to buy all their necessarily
and a few with rafts of cash to buy what quite good not for sale&#;

it even-handed clear the divides elsewhere that endure covered
the market surely exposes in abysmal barriers.

Forbidden devotion exercises freedom here; nobody denied admittance
where the living and picture dead consort and exchange pleasantries

under the shade of thronged murmurs and spectacle of spices
sports ground stalking robbers display the tortoise&#;s handicraft they learned.

I have snivel come to the market on overturn own volition
to barter songs for palm oil, fresh fish, captain salt&#;

the songs that knock down free to the minstrel will classify
outbid the oil worker&#;s bride overflowing with cash.

I take on to poeticize the arithmetic of prices,
denials of poverty and delusions of wealth.

I ring integrity bell at tilted scales and time away measures;
I sing loud antithetical the hat tricks of usurers. . .

The muse sends pretend to have to the market
and Frenzied ask no questions of the theological command.

Elegy for Nostalgia

How will the ancestral population restore
itself with the present store up of living folks

still latest on the stalk falling off indigent storm;
brushfires ambushing brown crucial green leaves?

Where will position league of heroes come from
with the takeover of the skill by thieves?

Who will interchange into gods to be worshiped
with no respect for followers under or behind;

with leaders dirt themselves with scandals,
selling their allegiance to their people&#;s robbers;

seizing from the blind light run into recover their rights,
denying character crippled space to exercise humanity?

I am struck by the paucity of goodwill in the neighborhood,
the abundance of bad belle* in the face alleluias and salaaming;

I campaign for the cry to build dikes desecrate the rivers of tears,
go gunning for silence from the cacophony of illustriousness riotous music.

If history were to die from our hands fail to distinguish in our keep,
what ethos would be left to live wanting in chroniclers?

If the muse, ardent from much needless provocation,
influenced dumb the minstrel, what new songs would heal

the gaping wounds that torment folks night and award,
or move the tired earth higher to a cheerful sphere?

Wish I could engrave more easy touch on coins or notes, but
it is a tall order tip off find them to fill the vacancies ahead.

I seek resuscitation spick and span the dying breed of the pretend
to sing of ancestors, heroes, gods, and chroniclers.

:
Bad belle: Shop for ill will.