IBADAN by John Pepper Clark

Ibadan is a city located in south-western Nigeria and is the capital of Oyo State with a population comprised mostly of the Yoruba people. The name Ibadan is derived from the Yoruba words Eba Odan which literally means ‘between the forest and plains’.

J.P. Clark’s poem is a short description of the city.

 

IBADAN

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Ibadan,      running splash of rust and gold – flung and scattered among seven hills like broken china in the sun.

PERSPECTIVES

It’s the last Tuesday of March, so let’s join Regular Rumination et al with the talk about poetry.

You’ve probably seen this on some other blog or website, but there’s no harm in telling you how fascinating I find this: 2 Poets – 2 Poems – 2 Different Perspectives – Same Title.

Abiku is a Yoruba (a Niger-Congo language spoken in Nigeria, Benin and Togo) word meaning  born to die. It is derived from the two Yoruba words abi (that which possesses) and iku (death). Abiku is the name given to the spirit of a child who does not live for long, but chooses to be reborn several times to the same family.

Rituals and sacrifices are made to appease it, but an Abiku chooses to be indifferent to the plights of its parents. It enjoys taunting and tormenting its mother by repeating the cycle of birth, death and rebirth in short successions. A woman whose firstborn is believed to be an Abiku usually ends up childless.

Wole Soyinka’s and John Pepper Clark’s poems have been compared, probed and analyzed on different literary levels, but as I stated before, “I am not a big fan of academic commentary on poems”.

So Iet’s share our thoughts on ABIKU by the two poets.

Any similarities? Any differences? What are your personal observations?

Do you know of any other poems with the same title but from two or more perspectives?

ABIKU by Wole Soyinka In vain your bangles cast Charmed circles at my feet; I am Abiku, calling for the first And the repeated time.   Must I weep for goats and cowries For palm oil and the sprinkled ash? Yams do not sprout in amulets To earth Abiku’s limbs.   So when the snail is burnt in his shell Whet the heated fragments, brand me Deeply on the breast. You must know him When Abiku calls again.   I am the squirrel teeth, cracked The riddle of the palm. Remember This, and dig me deeper still into The god’s swollen foot.   Once and the repeated time, ageless Though I puke. And when you pour Libations, each finger points me near The way I came, where   The ground is wet with mourning White dew suckles flesh-birds Evening befriends the spider, trapping Flies in wind-froth;   Night, and Abiku sucks the oil From lamps. Mother! I’ll be the Supplicant snake coiled on the doorstep Yours the killing cry.   The ripest fruit was saddest; Where I crept, the warmth was cloying. In the silence of webs, Abiku moans, shaping Mounds from the yolk.

ABIKU by John Pepper Clark  Coming and going these several seasons, Do stay out on the baobab tree, Follow where you please your kindred spirits If indoors is not enough for you. True, it leaks through the thatch When floods brim the banks, And the bats and the owls Often tear in at night through the eaves, And at harmattan, the bamboo walls Are ready tinder for the fire That dries the fresh fish up on the rack. Still, it’s been the healthy stock To several fingers, to many more will be Who reach to the sun. No longer then bestride the threshold But step in and stay For good. We know the knife scars Serrating down your back and front Like beak of the sword-fish, And both your ears, notched As a bondsman to this house, Are all relics of your first comings. Then step in, step in and stay For her body is tired, Tired, her milk going sour Where many more mouths gladden the heart.