ANA - Lagos: October Reading!

Association of Nigerian Authors, Lagos Chapter
Presents
October Reading!
Whether you are a Poet, Playwright or Fictionist
And resides in Lagos, you are warmly welcome to the monthly
Reading of the Associations of Nigerian Authors
Lagos Chapter (ANA-Lagos).

Theme: ANA Lagos in retrospect.

Guest Speakers: Dr. Tolu Ajayi
Nike Adesuyi
Uzo Maxim (a.k.a god of poetry)
Compere: Chike Ofile
Venue: National Gallery of Art (Aina Onabolu Complex),
National Theatre, Iganmu.
Date: October 14th, 2006.
Time: 2.00 p.m. prompt.
Other highlights include Drama presentations:

by Renaissance Theatre led by Lekan Balogun.

As usual, the special reading, which will be spiced with exciting recitations, performances and readings from creative works of new and established writers, will present the right atmosphere for the exhibition of creative talents. All (published) authors are therefore implored to bring copies of their publications for presentation and sale at the event.

Hot Discussion: on the unknown generations

Editor: I have read this article.What do you think?

Ayanda Abeke: I would have loved to hear your view first but I have no choice than to answer your quest. Thanks for reading it. I think in my own opinion that African literature in entirety will go no where if we(writers) continue to write with a language we have no grip on. The first generation of African writers did so well using English as their writing tool because they got quantitative learning of the language directly from the owners. However, the uncategorized generation who write in their mother tongues did so well that none of the English written literature of today can compete with dear ideology, philosophy and the down to earth communicative skill. Wole Soyinka had not done better even with his boring vocabularies. This I read in the article that was part of the problems of the third generation writers. Although we don't know how to classify writers of my age. Well, we await our figure...but claptrap, cnn, bbc, yahoo, generation x and stuff I will never take for our generation which one of us had admitted. You can read his poem in submission and confirmation of these aghast names on my blog: www.ayandaabeke.blogspot.com

Another thing that contributed largely to the problem is thematic preoccupation in the present day African writers. The first and second generations had colonialism, imperialism, neo-colonialism, civil war(s) and others to discuss in their literature but all we are left with are Love, Relationships, HIV and AIDS. That is the reason why they find us to be difficult to understand and as well to trace. We talk about so many things: day after day because diversity became the order of our day. Take for instance Nngugi wa Thiong'o, many of his books that I've read only based of colonialism and imperialism. At least I have read close to five of his works: plays, prose and articles on this subject. Ocot p'Bitek is another person who has no other theme to threat than colonialism. Yet, 1,2 and 3 generations look down on us. They never take interest in our versatility.

Dear Editor, I never prepare for this and my time is running out. I will like to hear your view and we will continue from there.

Editor: Hello, Ayanda Abeke, I understand your thoughts perfectly.

This generational issue.

There does seem to be a link between massive political issues and the production of poetry.

For example, anti-colonialism in Nigeria created a whole generation of important writers.
For example, the first-world war in the UK created major breakthrought: Eliot's The Wasteland.

What happens when these monents of crisis pass?
They seem to haunt the imagination like shadows.

For example, in Nigeria, there is a desire to talk about colonialism still
For example, in the UK, there is still a wish to re-live the second-world war period. The media still produces drama about this period. Critics still write about poets of the first and second world war, Owen, Sasoon, Douglas etc, as if they have to be known about because they wrote about these great events.

I have a problem with this.
I think you have a problem with this attitude too.

Tolu Ogunlesi has this attitude...the present generation are the fingers that cannot reach the water. He is describing Decadence. At the close of the nineteenth-century, poets of The Decadence sighed the same sighs as Ogunlesi: everything has been done, all that we can do is look back, our generation is wasted. Then Pound , Eliot, Carlos-Williams ripped poetry into a new dimension with free-verse.

Ogunlesi says that "Google is the new Godot".
It sounds very clever, but he does not really understand the phrase.
In Waiting for Godot, Beckett, Lucky speaks of the degeneration of the human mind. Ogunlesi seems to think that Lucky is speaking about Godot and Godot=the superficial human mind=Googling the net.
Godot is God and Goodness.
Interesting that Ogunlesi attacks the superficial thinkers but thinks carelessly himself.
I have not read much of Ogunlesi's poetry, but what I have read seems to be a product of what he hates: the superficial Google, unknown, Generation X.

So...colonialism has gone...so poetry must look to new areas of conflict.
So...the great world wars have gone...so poetry must look to new areas of conflict.

HERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE, one that has prevented me from understanding you at times and for this error I apologise.

Contemporary UK poetry, has turned from global events towards the self--the global world inside the human.
Contemporary African poetry has not gone this route...it sees love, the psyche, AIDs, human relatonships, as things not worth talking about. But they are. Colonialism was a physical and mental battle waged through death and words.

Ogunlesi sees the present generation as a world without mind. That is his mindless problem. It is HIS fingers that are too short to reach the water. That is HIS problem. It is the work for greater poets to find a new mind for Nigeria.

I suggest a basic problem. Ogunlesi was born in the UK. Ogunlesi can speak the white man's English. So, he writes fluently. Because he writes fluent English people say "Hey, here is a man writing well, he is a poet". But is he? I look at samples from his Gecko book and am bored. His English does not impress me. I can read his English all around me. I look at his thoughts and yawn: Google-man!

You are right to be suspicious.

Generational Imbalance

In reaction to Ama’s comment on a new member (Senator Ihenyen) in Kriazitiviti, a literary linkserve, Tolu Ogunlesi said:

No, Lord Ama, I doubt that we are empty barrels.
We are many other things, " [the] unfortunate children of fortunate
parents" (Biodun Jeyifo); the "Yahoo-generation" (Damola Awoyokun),
etc etc, but, empty barrels, nah, I doubt it.... And he further buttressed his point with a free verse poem title: A NAME FOR US.

Tolu’s view on generational superiority quite differ from Chike Ofili's. He condemned vehemently in his paper delivered at Aina Onobolu Hall during ANA-Lagos' August Reading the various names Tolu agreed were really his generation's names.

The argument proper:

Chike Ofili: Generational Superiority

A tree cannot make a forest and in trusted unions is the wisdom of the Yoruba. They established this fact by a practical experiment. Imagine a forest filled with several species of trees and monkeys as their specimens. In this forest, monkeys jump from one tree to another, dangling, hovering, on and over branches with ease, enclosed in excitement; to the amusement of the researchers. Then, at an instant, the trees are distanced from one another. The monkeys with the highest skill of synchronized movement in the forest are subjected to the stress of long distance travel to get to another tree and suppressed by turmoil. Hence, unions form and these foster cordiality. This is the reason why you see people with common ideas, missions and believes coming together to form groups, forums and communities in ancient Africa and in other parts of the world.

The 1st and 2nd generations of writers in Nigeria came together in the 70s after succeeding in their various miniature groups to form an alliance that would give their voices more recognition and make them heard. They registered the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) almost immediately after political tensions in the country relaxed and ever since then the association has been upright.; although some members of the association constantly toed the political terrain and projected the association to its purported height within a twinkle in their eyes. Among these notorious and radical writers are Prof. Wole Soyinka, Prof. Chinua Achebe, the late environmentalist, Ken Saro-wiwa, Odia Ofeimum and several others. Today, the association has its branches in virtually all the states in Nigeria.

As the second Saturday of the month is sacred to published and unpublished writers, publishers, journalists, book enthusiasts and lovers of literature in the congested city of Lagos, they all gathered at Aina-Onobolu’ s Art Gallery under the umbrella of the state branch of ANA. The Lagos chapter of the ANA held her September reading with the theme: “The Climate of Creative Writing in Present-day Nigeria”. Uduma Kalu and Chike Ofili were the guest speakers, whilst Maxwell moderated with high intellect. After some readings, with fair criticism, the chairman, Folu Agoi declared the interactive section opened. Even though Uduma Kalu, the renowned journalist could not grace the reading, he sent his contribution towards the theme through his colleague who read his paper with his own personal embellishments. Chike Ofili also came with a written paper, but he had a lot of books and materials to buttress his view points. Indeed both of them argued for the 4th generation of writers, stating clearly their limitations and successes in Nigerian literature. However, Chike Ofili argued that the reason why 1st and 2nd generations of writers looked down on both 3rd and 4th generations is that they equate generation X with the UK and America. He explained that X is used to connote an unknown figure in mathematics, thereby it means empty in the actual sense.

At the inception of the section, Chike Ofili affirmed that it was because of Colonial and independence issues (which needed constant highlighting via all forms of _expression) that 1st and 2nd generations had the opportunity to produce several pieces, and, of course, the foreign publishing houses in Nigeria were eager to publish new African voices. This was unlike what has befallen the 3rd and 4th generations that have become inclined to self-publishing, tagged: “vanity publishing” by the older generations. Indeed, the 3rd generation was partially favoured by the Biafra War and the tense political atmosphere in the later 70s.

Refusing to pay due compliment by the older generations to 4th generation, Chike Ofili submitted his view as a bone of contention. And this he said was founded on the fear of not being wiped out of circulation, which equates them with the characteristics of the bourgeois. Also he quoted Odia Ofeimum to have said that the 4th generation is a “Clap-trap generation” and Prof. Niyi Osundare’ view that this generation is a “CNN generation” in one of his interviews. These respected and renowned writers were classified as the pioneers of the 3rd generation. But when critically viewed, the 4th generation has nothing much to discuss other than the world epidemic immune deficiency syndrome: HIV/AIDS as its acronym. Both speakers argued that the common issues ravished the hearts of the generation. The great pan-Africanist, Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o and the late Ocot p’Bitek, who are 1st and 2nd generations respectively, are known for their promotion of African ideologies, arts and culture; also campaigns against the African bourgeois, traitors, puppet politicians and colonial and imperial brutality, reasons being that these constituted the reality of their time.

Nevertheless, the generation in question has done equally well as far as Nigerian and African literatures are concerned. The rate at which they win international awards and prizes to the glory of Nigeria and the continent cannot be under estimated. Even though with their fictitious (as viewed by the older generation) fictions, poetry and drama, they have redeemed the Black image all over the world. And they never claimed their fellow writers’ creative works by having their names widely-bolded across cover pages at the expense of the original writers, in the name of translation, which the 1st and 2nd and perhaps, the 3rd generations are guilty of.

Ayanda Abeke
Rumour Networks
Lagos.


Tolu Ogunlesi: A NAME FOR US
"Google is the new Godot.." - The Generation-X manifesto

I have thought of a name
For my generation

We are the Wastebin /Condom /Yahoo / Claptrap generation,

Somehow, the dregs
Of time have found
Bed and breakfast
In us

We have soaked our garments
In the suds that washed
The sweat of the fathers

We have coveted the miracle
Of amnesia -
An unknowing - of how
To loosen the knots
Fate gened in us

We are the last page
Of an unwritten book
The night in which God
Put out the last star
The cycle will begin again
After us. From purity.

We are the age
In which water outgrew
The fingers of the well

What shall we rename Oedipus
Now that he has spurned blindness?

And what,
Shall we rename madness
In an age sans Mind?

Tolu Ogunlesi (c) 2006

Mufu Onifade is 40!

The founder of Araism Movement personally invite you all to his 40th Birthday and celebration of his 21 years in Art Practice. The twin event will showcase a Command Performance of his Tragicomedy entitled "LOVE IS BLIND" directed by Makinde Adeniran. Public presentation of the same play book also holds same day same venue.

Date: THURSDAY OCTOBER 5, 2006

Venue: CINEMA HALL 2, NATIONAL THEATRE IGANMU, LAGOS

Time: 5 P.M PROMPT

You are all warmly invited to come and laugh your hearts out as you celebrate with Mufu Onifade.

The show is packaged by THE COMMITTEE OF FRIENDS headed by
ROPO EWENLA
08032311574