Memories of Misery (Part I)

My grandmother was a staunch and strong believer who never believed anything could happen without the permit of God. When we were young, we would sit beside her while she told us many in-depth moralizing stories of the virtuous from the Scripture and famous fables.  As she would say, “this world is a journey for every soul to voyage. In anything you do, make sure you maintain perfect relationship with your Lord. He has your return.” We would listen with absolute earnestness while our hands were folded at the axis of our chest like someone engulfed by night wintriness, and our eye balls widely fixed on her lips as we sipped from her stream of religious and morality-coated wisdom.

We would maintain absolute silence and decorum under the heart-warming tutelage of moonlight. These legacies laid by her are what I built my faith and trust in God upon. And since I had grown up to see the world as a dungeon for the pious and an abode of luxury for  the cohorts of fiend, I always  assumed everything that happened to me as part of my destiny which had come to stay in the diary of my memory.

Before We Say Goodbye: A Memory Note For Travellers At The Juncture Of Departure

logo of Panache Class, OAU

Sometimes, when itinerant journeyers reach the crossroad of departure and nostalgia tours them through the lane of memories they have perhaps proudly shared with people they never knew before, but brought together by train of life, they feel the unusual urge of re-claiming those indelible moments on the field where they were lost. But the expedient need to depart is a must, since men are like water. We meet like rivers at a confluence with remnants of touches that remain when we are gone on separate paths. Who are we- innocent slaves of time; travellers at the end station- not to accept what already written in the book of destiny, as we drop the baton of this race and take another phase in the chapter of life?

  

I feel so honoured to address you great men of good characters I may not have the second chance of meeting in the future whether as individuals or group, as we reach our station of departure to chase another destiny and mount the ladder of another stage of life. I feel so humbled, not only because I am an active member of this wonderful Class which I’ll always be and proud to warble its anthem with pure conscience of kindred spirit and high sense of belonging, but also due to the fact that I belong to the best ever class, PANACHE ‘14- the class of fecund minds and people of high repute; the class of readers, leaders that raised my voice and shaped my philosophical perspective of the world; the class of history!

When A Poet Falls In Love: A Review Of Kayode Taiwo Olla’s Softlie

Book: Softlie

Author: Kayode Taiwo Olla

Reviewer: Rahaman Abiola Toheeb

Year Published: 2014

front & back page of Softlie

Prior to this time has been a little shift of interest in the dimension of Nigerian poetry owned to the new wave of consciousness and unquenchable flame of epochal quest for new phase of poetry, chiefly love poetry in lieu of politically cantered ones. In relation to this awareness, contemporary writers have taken on the mantle and assumed this task, thereafter creating a space for love poetry in their collection, despite the fact that they are still aware of the political confusion, shipwreck and imbalance, economic dire and melt-down, moral decadence, tyrannical display of power-drunkenness by political post-bearers, and most importantly, the gladiatorial rancour and horn-knot among the over-zealous elder statesmen, especially in almost parts of Africa.

Without any scintilla of doubt, this conscious responsibility has breathed life to the voices of young owlets like Kayode Taiwo Olla who are mindful of the fact that  the common men like them need  not to always find their solace only at the armpit of angry and revolutionary poetry projected due to the acute leadership failure in Africa- what young poets like Tosin Gbogi Akeem Lasisi, and others of this ideology have come to preach against having been indoctrinated  into the poetic revolutionary spirit led by Niyi Osundare, Odia Ofeimum, and Franz Aig-Imoukhuede and other poets whose voices echoed to kick-out the post-colonial dilemma and contemporary banes. But rather they embark on new dimension of poetry thematized on other aspects of life and necessitating factors for human succour and survival.