Shortlisted Poets in Honor Of Professor Wole Soyinka @81, 2015

THE POETRY COURT 

 (Lets Speak LITERATURE)

 

 Shortlisted Poets in Honor Of Professor Wole Soyinka @81, 2015

The call for sub mission of poems in honor of Prof Wole Soyinka @81 saw the birth of WORDS.

THERE ARE POETS and THERE ARE POETS!

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POEMS TITLES AND NAMES OF SHORTLISTED POETS

>AKE by Akor Emmanuel 

>UNTITED - Adigun Temitope

> BURIED PEACE by Ali Toyin Abdul

> I WISH I COULD SEE YOU ONCE by Saheedah Mobola Oluwapelumi

> BACK IN TIME by Ogedengbe Tolulope

> FIND ME by Goodness Lanre Ayoola

> Kongi Beats! by JohnMacx

>LOOGUN OFE O! by Adeouye Muydeen

> Lion of Literature by Seun Adeleke

> ABEOKUTA by Abidemi Martins

AKE

Whose voice do we long to hear?
It is Ake's voice.
From whose words do we learn?
it is from Ake's words.

Whose face do we dream to see?
it is Ake's face.
Whose poems do we love to read?
it is Ake's poems.

Let Ake be honored,
let his voice be heard,
let his face be seen,
let his world be learned.

Ake sailed with his pen
across military seas,
yet he stood undefeated
through thick and thin.

Ake still lives,he still sings,
hear his music in poetry
also feel the rhythm
in every beat.

Let ake be honored
let his vioce be heard,
let his face be seen,
let his words be learned.

AKE: a former refugee settlement in western
nigeria during the colonal
days, it is home to the laurent wole soyinka.
here used as
personification in place of him.

Akor Emmanuel 

Visually,
Compelling,
Poetically,
I'm stimulating
The story of a tremendous indigenous activist
Whose poetic language and ethos;
Dances to the instrumentation in lines,
Sings metaphors in verses,
Prophesy symbols in stanzas,
Preaches proverbs in poems
Your aesthetic works
Is an historical body of experiences
You are a researcher,
Searching for the deeper meanings
Of peace and unity
You trekked to become intellectual Aristocrats
In-evolving in social-political upheavals
In you the optimism and belief in Nigeria is
unshakable
Just like your advocacy of the intellectual
culture of your people
You are a carrier of communal spirit and chorus
to those heavenly bodies
You were trained and ordained
To rule different genres
An impetus to young writers
You taught them;
How to use myths in creating the ritualistic
theatrical meaning in drama,
The use of language to find the rhythms to the
depth of the words in poetry,
Characters to see the mirror and vision of the
society in prose.

Adigun Temitope with the pen name Deacon. Adigun Temitope Idealism is an undergraduate student of UNN Email: aidealism@gmail.com

BURIED PEACE

With the dreadful hat men in the middle temple
carting away unsung heroes
For reasons unknown to sister earth.

With the lone mothers in their forties
panicking about the soaked streets
in search of their beloved breadwinners.

With the foetus in its shrouded sac
choked by the fragrance of anguish
permeating the whole neighbourhood.

With the mournful birds
in their ageless numbers
chirping off the nights
In lone voice, stunted will
invoking the spirits of their motherly ancestors.

With the wheezing mosquitoes by the natives’
joint
cackling melodies of distasteful rhyme
that secrete emotion to the bone marrow.

Of our grandpa’s tombstones
Lying side by side the grave pits of their
progenies
Who doggedly lost the fights
To the bloody hands of the unapologetic captors.

Of our robust virgin maids
stripped off before their lustful suitors
leaving them to wallow in tattered flesh.

And the quake by the plateaux
fast swallowing our farmlands
shredding bamboo sticks off the ageing huts
and weighing down our muddy castles
into assembly of rubrics.

Wither the sweet-tongued magic men
who blurred our eye with logs
while savouring our forefathers’ wine
“We shall castrate them in second”
they swore unto high heaven
as thousands catwalk into eternal glory
have the Gods forsaken us again?

Ali Toyin Abdul is a young writer with strong passion for poetry, creative writing, journalism and photography. His literary works have been featured in several national and international platforms which include Naija stories, The Guardian Newspapers Literature Section, words rhyme and rhythms, and black communion: an anthology of contemporary African poets. In addition, he has bagged several writing prizes, including the 2013 change makers club international writing contest prize. Toyin is currently pursuing a Law degree at the prestigious University of Ilorin, and executive member of dream project for Africa. He loves listening to music, reading biographies and swimming.

I WISH I COULD SEE YOU ONCE
Maybe we'll meet one day
of that I can't say.
Staring out the window
Smelling the ink of my biro
I crave for a magic
to wheel you to my presence.

Merlin will do it
Conjuring spirits by strange word
ekta om…sunlit om...
Even Harry Porter of the order of Phoenix
will invoke the presence of exceptional beings
Swisshing...swasshing...elictrum spectrum...
But I can't do it!

I pry to see you appear
In a crack in the wall
Or a slash through the ceiling
A bang through the door.
You're such an exception
that I imagine you in that form.

It's true we're miles apart
In truth I can't make you ride
A fairy train to this part...

But you're a living legend
Your tales traveled across lands.
Tales of how you dared the nose of the guns
How you fought every battle with words
Tales of truth being told amidst odds.
Tales that bring you closer to me
Closer to others
Closer to the world.

You're a fighter
A father
My hero
Our hero.

Saheedah Mobola Oluwapelumi (MOSS) is a Corp member currently serving in katsina-ala, Benue state. I've passion for arts and writing in particular.
Email:joinmeewrites@gmail.com

BACK IN TIME

Back in time,
Our fathers drank directly from the streams
High up in the highlands
From the springs of the purest water.

Back in time,
Our progenitors danced at the festival
Embraced the earth with our feet
And the field grew green in their praise.

Back in time,
Our mothers laughed at the moonlight tales;
Tales on how the tortoise broke its spine
And fed the animals with lies.

Back in time,
Our warriors broke into the sea of the night
And arrived at the disputed field
To compete with the generation of antiquity.

Now, in this time,
We leave our toes in our shoes
To be gnawed at by ticklish bugs
Of an adopted culture.

We forget the fountain
That begat the charmed tributary
And we no longer visit the shaded tree
Where in unison, our mothers sang in glee.

The path once trodden by our fathers
Has become a forgotten lane
And we shatter the hope of our future
By biting the tail of our culture.

Ogedengbe Tolulope is a final year student in the department of chemical engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife. He started writing poetry and short stories in 2012 and served as the Editorial secretary of Anglican Student Fellowship(ASF OAU) Ile-Ife in 2013.

Tolulope was part of the winners of the five days love poetry competition organised by CAPRICON and SPIC in February 2015 and his poems featured in the LOVE POEMS anthology compiled and edited by Abegunde Sunday. He also emerged the 3rd position in the April Edition of Brigitte Poirson Poetry contest.  Currently, he is the president of Divine Poetry OAU Ile-Ife.

FIND ME

i
my pen drives me
into the wilderness of poetry
and i am lost again!

first, the sarcastic monkeys
force me to write an elegy
for buried rhetoric of baboons

they say they are not good men
i kill them again with darts of apostrophes
i malign the fates of eulogies in dirges...

ii
i sweat sweats and breathe breathlessly
for there are no chasers like the
bold bloody bees of alliterations
armed and armoured in the shield of
assonance...

they chase me with the pangs of consonance

but, providence comes in the vehicles of sonnets
i rhyme with the rhythms sprouts of euphemisms

they pass buzzing... chorusing...
in fierce chords of onomatopoeia.

iii
I climb didactic mountains of metaphors
providence again smiles the colours of similes

the colours of similes...
my pen in the coat of metonymy
has the magical pleasures of pun
it wields paradoxes in the amazements of stanzas

I dare verses of valleys in the personification of
man...

lilies in the beauty of litotes make my bed
and i drink relief from the waters of hyperbole

the nightingale sings me odes in lyrics.

iv

I hear drums of ballads in epics
drunk over the wines of enjambments

I have checked the minstrel
it is a small synecdoche rocking the climax
of the jungle in dramatic poetry

and now the acrobatic dance of irony
in the rapping legs of antonomasia...

imageries and symbolism are served in excess
and this is the anti-climax.

v

i eat the meats of refrains
in the hunts of repetitions...

i chew the fats and breaks
the bones of leathery oxymorons..

i see my spirited mood fading
in the tone of a satisfied parody

rickety to the house of free verse...
a misty blank verse covers my trails...

will you find me?

Goodness Lanre Ayoola (b. 1989) hails from Osun State, Nigeria and lives in Abeokuta, Ogun State. He is a teacher of English language. He has a B.A(ED) in English from the University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria. His poems are published and reviewed on poetry sites and online magazines. He loves to work with great minds.

Kongi Beats!

If the wings of poetry here upon my abode,
And thereupon my odes chant like sparrow,
If my sonnet to OBA elevate him prides,
And still my adroit fail to acknowledge Kongi,
Whose Muse of 1965,unravel The Interpreter,
I've not yet poetried.

Kongi Beats!!

If my sage jamborees the OLORI to smile,
Even the Oriki of august hunters she sings,
Enormously perturbed forlorn mountains to
flounce,
And still fails to acknowledge the Dance of the forest,
I've not yet prosed.

Kongi Beats!!!

If my Ijala possesses the hunters like liquor,
And periwinkles' tentacles a wave-like flood,
If my pen to cloud, in thunder so boastful,
And still my muse fails to salute The Season of
Anomy,
I've not yet playwright.

Kongi Beats!!!!

If my thoughts to trees bow before winds,
And my gestures, at night felt by solitude,
If my sonnet could sing songs of hope,
And still the Wisdom who opens The 1960 Mask
is not saluted,
I'm yet to be known.

Soyinka
Africa's Greatest
World Renowned
For without thee,
July will not sing in the month of 7.

So...
If she fails to standstill to dawn,
To acknowledge Kongi,
Then she will fade away.


July Poetry 2015
MJA
Macxmillian John Ayo
Collection
All Right Reserved.

Meaning Of Some Used Words.
1. Ijala: Odes sang for hunters. Eg Ijala of Yoruba
hunters simply means Odes to the Yoruba
hunters.

2. Oba: King. It's a Yoruba way of calling the
king in her dialect.

3. Oriki: Appellation. It's used to praise
someone. To sing one's oriki means to praise a
person using traditional based dialectal words. It
is common amongst the Yorubas

4. Olori: wife of the (Oba) king is known as Olori
amongst the Yorubas.

JohnMacx

LOOGUN OFE O!
I was in the Kongi's harvest
where slept and wept many an ake
argal I descried the ake
with a jewelled lion held for the fest
to d beaters' beat we cried 'loogun ofe o'!

but I have seen the ball point
yes in the ball point
dancing as the tabour cried
whilst that mind balladeered
I cried out 'loogun ofe o'!

the lit ambulant circler
in circuitous ambages
and constant collocative locutions
that escape the test of time
even when hollower than a loculus
he stood his words stood
he ran his words stood
he ambulated by the ambuscade
he returned still to stand
by and with his words long that stood
I cried again 'loogun ofe o'!

the ambidextrous letters-smith
in kit kitchen and sorbing substrate
who with his mother's tongue
talks in his father's parlance
agbasaga loogun ofe o!

he fames his works
his works fame him
more are his works than he fames
less than his works still he fames
akiika loogun ofe o!

I asked a congregant
so you are the professor?
Are you truly the possessor
Of this vast ocean that drink nations?
Of these Jewel jewelry
jewelling in the jungly junctions
and peacefuller places?
Making a sense-sensing noise!
kaasa! loogun ofe o!

I had seen your ball points' prints
and your kempt kept head heather
I espied your hands lest I knew you
your hands have voyaged
jewelling circumbagiously
and straightforwardly in the distance
about all the circulatory horizons
scenes, verses, chapters
the polity, the politics, the polity
the circadian clock kens
when clucked the contoured hens
kosiro nbe loogun ofe o!

for other knights that warred
other battlers that battle still
other warriors of undeclared wars
sleep this cutlass in the scabbard!
every birth has seen your births
every aye shall see your clotted blood
every gulp shall eat your cibarious farm and hail
looogun ofe o!

Meaning of some of the Yoruba substrates employed in the poem.

1) Agbasaga meaning a promoter of culture.
2) Kosiro nbe meaning never it's a lie
3) Akiika and kaasa are both surprising exclamatTories
4) loogun ofe o! the refrained chorus in the poem meaning greetings to a hero of gallantry.
5) Ake in the second line of of the poem means a very big goat that is slayed at occasions especially cultural ones. while the ake in the third line is a book written by the hero, prof WS.

Adeouye Muydeen. A native of Ibadan of Oyo State. I am a literary circler in the containment of the three
genres, a poet, playwright and an author. A literature facilitator at secondary level and beyond, educated at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-ife, Osun State, I have contributed to both national and international literary journals, in the major of  poetry, and have participated in different literary competition series. Professor WS is my field model.

Our Lion of Literature

From "The Lion and the Jewel"
To "Alapata Apata"
You become the thorn in the skin
The thick skin of despots
Inflicting the pains of Abiku

Your pen roars
Your pen echoes
Travelling around the jungle
The jungle of the earth
Across the Nile
Across the Sahara
Across the Atlantic
Your words travel
With your roars
Consuming injustice
Like the fire consumes
In harmattan

The king of comedy
The king of theatre
You rack our brains
With your neologic magic
Confusing the English with English
You are an ocean
Your depth unknown
Your honour, our honour
The first Nobel of our continent
Your praises I sing
The stooge of Ogun
I sing your praises
The scion of Essay
Your praises I sing
Who will challenge your honours?
Who will silent your voice?
None...with your vault of honours
None...with the temerity of your wit
None...with your white strands of hair
The scion of Essay
Your praises I sing
Again and again
Like the Nightingale sings

My lines must be full
Your years of treading the Generals’ toes
Treading the Serpents’ tails
With your hard boots of words
Defiling their fangs
Defiling their stings
Elusive like an eel
Unchanging like a hill
You are true OSO-YIN-KA
Our compound of wit

Words are the whales
You are the ocean
Words are the fighter jets
You are the sky
In you they thrive
Our Kongi
At 80, the world bows
At 81, the world wonders
The stooge of Ogun
The Irunmole of words

The trumpet sounds from you
The cock of the masses
Calling our attention to pains
That shroud the masses
In the name of governance
Even in your septo-years
Your pen continues to dance
Your words wobble not
You prove your WS
You lay eggs of words on...

As you continue to plough
The world of the living
We will continue to seek your feet
To seek your voice
To seek your words

May your words never wither
May your voice never quavers
Professor of Professors
Teacher of Teachers
The Lion of our Literature

I doff my cap.

Seun Adeleke is a postgraduate student in the University of Ibadan. I am studying Literature in the department of English. I am an essayist, a reviewer and a critic.

Check aoiopenideas.blogspot.com

ABEOKUTA

Voice of olumo has long been heard
Lisabi is a lonesome pathway dried
Saliva tires to return to the called
I know this for the yearns of the spirit aged

5. Egba calls her child
Those both near and far in the wild
Sojourners in the wild
I will to you-the ancestors -
Return a valiant frost

10 coming to terms with the harmattaned floors
For tales to tell of rigor
And hurdle, lakes as acid
And evidenced scars from journeys arid
I will to you-the mothermost-

15. Return a man-made
Proof of my long-lined descent
Leaves part the tree
Yet many sprout after the shed free
Each at its turn new or weary

20 I at mine
To be a green
I am still at sea

[Olumo:the name of the rock under which theegba dynasty originated]
[egba:another name for Abeokuta]
[lisabi:name of egba’s ancestoral mother,theorigin]

Born Abidemi Martins into the family of oni,he is a graduate of economics from the Lagos State University Ojo Lagos.he traveled around Africa and has deep love for arts and music.his first works like "Ojumo ilemo "and "we were toys" were inspired by Wole Soyinka and J.P Clark,Leopold Senghor,David Rubadiri and and so many other African writers.he aspires to become a poet laureate and professor someday soon.

The maiden edition of Thepoetry Court BEAUTY OF WORDS

An evening of WORDS...

Free books for our Top Three Poets in honor of Professor Wole Soyinka @81.

POETS OF THE MONTH for this year 2015 will also be celebrated.

The Beauty Of Words is to use them as tools, to change a failed society! 

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