By Niyi Osundare
Wish I could still laugh with the lotus
On the bank of the Nile
Take off my clothes
And dive into the Zambezi
Join spirit dancers
In the middle of the Ganges
Romp with the Rio
To the thunder of the samba
Fan the Yangtze’s face
With the fan of the moon
Tease the Thames
With a shoeless foot
Embrace the Volga
With open arms
Ask the Mississippi
For a bowl of water . . .
Alas, between cup and lip
An acre of wishes
About the poem
Niyi Osundare’s poem,Wishes,is filled with nostalgia drawing readers to that time in time when life was enjoyable, when creation could enjoy the Creator’s provisions with reckless abandon.
The nostalgic ruminations of the poet persona sired this poem full of enjoyment imagery such as laugh with the lotus, tease the Thames, fan the face of the Yangtze, embrace the Volga, etc.
When life was fun to live, the poet visited and laughed with the lotus, the flowers of the river, here of the Nile, that longest river in the world flowing through Egypt and Sudan, emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. Lotus here also symbolises the happy fruit (of the Hindus).
The poet wishes that time could come back.
By citing lotus and the Nile, world’s longest river at 6, 650km in his nostalgic wishes, the poet persona seems to hint at how long he wants to enjoy life and how happy that enjoyment can make him.
When one takes off his clothes to swim, it’s because you’re happy and carefree.
The poet continues the sense of exploring and enjoying nature with world famous rivers’ name – dropping.
Next river he’d have loved to continue to have fun in, is Zambezi, Africa:’s 4th longest river, longest East flowing river in Africa and the largest basin flowing into the Indian ocean. This river flows through Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia and Angola.
Perhaps they perform some ritual dances on the river that rose from the western Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttaralchand, that flows south and east through the Gangetic Plain of North India after entering West Bengal? This river is called Ganges river. The poet wishes he could still dance with the spirit dancers of India on this river; or romp with the riotous crowd in Rio de Janeiro, to the samba music of Carnaval festival. He must be thinking of romping to the sound of samba on Rio’s famous beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema.
Oh, if wishes were horses, he’d still pursue fun to Asia’s longest river and the 3rd longest river in the world, China ‘s 6, 380km long Yangtze river, sourcing from Tanggula Mountain chain in the Quinghai Tibetan Plateau, flowing from west to the east, through about 10 provinces including Tibet and Shanghai, into East China Sea. And I believe dancing with the Chinese fan wearing changpao(Chinese flowing male garment), fanning the river with the Chinese fan.
The poet persona isn’t done with his wishes, his soul longs for England’s 346 km longest river and UK 2nd longest river after river Severn. River Thames boasts of famous bridges such as London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Westminster Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and so many others. How wonderful it would be to sit by this famous river teasing it with a shoeless foot?
Or to embrace Europe’s longest river (3, 500km) and Russia’s national river, the Volga river which flows through central Russia into the Caspian Sea?
Why does the poet persona wish he could still embrace Volga with open arms? In life, when you know some things about someone they hinder you from being free with them. Just me thinking about Russia…
I don’t know why the poet persona ends his wishes with asking the Mississippi for a bowl of water since he’s an African and could have ended his quest at home. However, methinks that in line with the aphorism, Charity begins at home, so the poet persona thinks it best to start from home, the Zambezi and the Nile and ends abroad.
The Mississippi at 3, 778km, is North America’s longest river. The choice of America as the place to end the poet’s quest, may not be difficult to understand considering that that land is world’s most popular destination. Plus, the USA is good at giving a helping hand.
Alas, just like wishes hardly come true, as the saying goes, if wishes were horses, beggars will ride, all his wishes flopped before him as he records a great distance between the cup and the lip or between his desires and achieving them.
This could mean that America the dream land, may not be as fulfilling as we consider it.
Wishes can also stand for the life and aspirations of the poet’s people, how unattainable they seem to have become as his country stumbles from one bad government to a worse.
Or is the poet telling us that when life was simple when life was easy, one could do all that the poet persona wishes he could still do? When one is young and carefree, you can do whatever you want. But, when one grows older, you realise that there are certain things you can no longer do. As an adult, one cannot go from one point of enjoyment to another or traverse the globe for enjoyment.
So, there’s this difference, this gulf, abyss between the youthful and the mature, the persona and the anima, between wishes/desires and the reality.
Between the opening line and the closing line is a wide gulf of difference as wide as the difference between dream/wishes and the reality.
Irrespective of what interpretation you give Osundare’s Wishes, or what sired the poem, we’re grateful to the poet for taking us round the world to see through the lines of his poem, world most famous rivers even if we can’t visit them.
Thank you, Osundare!
Not my business
By Niyi Osundare
They picked Akanni up one morning
Beat him soft like clay
And stuffed him down the belly
Of a waiting jeep.
What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?
They came one night
Booted the whole house awake
And dragged Danladi out,
Then off to a lengthy absence.
What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?
Chinwe went to work one day
Only to find her job was gone:
No query, no warning, no probe –
Just one neat sack for a stainless record.
What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?
And then one evening
As I sat down to eat my yam
A knock on the door froze my hungry hand.
The jeep was waiting on my bewildered lawn
Waiting, waiting in its usual silence.
About the poem
This poem is self explanatory. Osundare calls Nigerians in particular and the world at large not to turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to the suffering and injustices meted out to others just because it hasn’t touched you. It could be your turn tomorrow. Note particularly the names of victims: they show that the offensive goes from one tribe to another. This warns us not to rejoice now because your tribe is not affected yet. So, take a stand. Join the conversation. Join a community. Be part of a pressure group to call for change in the polity.
Not my Business is compulsory study in the AQA A Syllabus for GCSE English Language.
About the poet
Niyi Osundare is a native of Ikere-Ekiti in Ekiti state. He is a prolific poet, dramatist and literary critic.
Born in 1947, Osundare studied at the University of Ibadan (BA), the University of Leeds (MA) and York University, Canada (PhD, 1979).
He became a professor in 1989 and was Head of English Department from 1993–97 at the University of Ibadan.
Married to Kemi, Osundare has three children, two girls and a son who still lives in Nigeria.
One of Osundare’s daughters was born deaf, this made him to decide to relocate and settle in the United States where they found a school for her. He accepted a teaching and research post at the University of New Orleans in 1997.
Osundare’s maxim is, ‘To utter is to alter.’
He has always been a vehement champion of the right to free speech and is a strong believer in the power of words.
He is renowned for his commitment to socially relevant art and artistic activism. He believes that there is no choice for the African poet but to be political:
“You cannot keep quiet about the situation in the kind of countries we find ourselves in, in Africa. When you wake up and there is no running water, when you have a massive power outage for days and nights, no food on the table, no hospital for the sick, no peace of mind; when the image of the ruler you see everywhere is that of a dictator with a gun in his hand; and, on the international level, when you live in a world in which your continent is consigned to the margin, a world in which the colour of your skin is a constant disadvantage, everywhere you go – then there is no other way than to write about this, in an attempt to change the situation for the better.”
Under the rule of the dictator General Sani Abacha (1993–98), Osundare regularly contributed poems to a Nigerian national newspaper (now part of the collection Songs of the Season) that criticised the regime and commented upon the lives of people in Nigeria. As a result, he was frequently visited by Security Agents and asked to explain his poems and to whom they referred:
“By that time I realized that the Nigerian security apparatus had become quite ‘sophisticated’, quite ‘literate’ indeed!”
“A couple of my students at the University of Ibadan had become informers; a few even came to my classes wired. And when I was reading abroad, someone trailed me from city to city. At home, my letters were frequently intercepted.”
He holds numerous awards for his poetry, as well as the Fonlon/Nichols award for “excellence in literary creativity combined with significant contributions to Human Rights in Africa.”
In December 2014, Osundare was awarded the Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA) for academic excellence.
