NaijaTalkTalk- Gomba’s poetry of thunder, defiance and hope

Gomba’s poetry

University don, Dr. Obari Gomba’s new collection of poetry Thunder Protocol (Farafina Kamsi, Lagos; 2015), his third, evinces the mind of a social crusader whose battered society is in need of healing.
But since healing seems far from coming from those who have volunteered to do so, the poet-persona takes recourse to defiance. And like those pushed to the wall, who have nothing more to lose, he and fellow travellers turn to face their adversary in defiant confrontation.

The second poem ‘There is a patch of grass’ sets out the tone of defiance even against the ravaging elements to which ‘a patch of grass’ stands firm from the ravage and wreck. ‘There is still this patch of grass/That defies the jaws of drought/…There is a patch of grass/That defies the torches of arson/…There is still a muster point/For days to bloom as flowers.”

So like the Phoenix, even the patched grass blooms flowers in the face of adversary and offers a ray of hope for the famished. The poem, ‘We are the sun,’ takes the note of defiance to that of hope as ‘…We wake too to declare/The iron continuity of hope/…Tomorrow will have new signposts/On the forehead of the rainbow…’ Indeed, there is a burst of wild joy at newfound energy to confront the adversary and march on to victory.

Although there is a somber aspect to Gomba’s poetry, it is not all heavy stuff as such. There is also wild banter and revelry as well that pepper most of it. It also follows the strain of defiance that he explores. And so he can afford to also banter as he does with the piece ‘The pub finds a laureate,’ in its delicate mix of politics and poet-critic encounter in a pub of all places. However, with ‘The dance continues’ following, Gomba shows the seriousness he attaches to his theme of exploring the underbelly of a country or society being led down a slippery slope. He dedicates the piece to Wole Soyinka as the man who saw the tomorrow of his country right from start and gave appropriate warnings that went unheeded with the inevitable doomsday result that has come to plague it.

He writes about the Half-Child who has refused to become whole many years after, ‘In the beginning, Forest Head saw it all./…The Half-Child is not yet whole; a whole child is not yet born/The land has grown as the power of grief…”

But if any poem evokes mixed emotions, it is ‘A Chibok mother’s hope.’ It presents the argument of the innocent against the madness of those sown to insurgence without cogent reasons to do so. It is perhaps one of the most telling poems in the collection as it brings the religious argument to the fore: those who kill in the name of God or Allah are sold to a creed they do not understand! ‘Perhaps I should wrap this hope/With rag and put it under sand/…,’ the mother wails, ‘…Is any bit left of this faith that has lost/Its moon to the guts of a python?…/…Your beard is as long as a python/Bent on swallowing the world,’ and she calls the religious bigot to order, ‘Come here, hear me, dear Mullah./Listen to the voice of a woman./The hijab is not blindness…’ Just as she makes a final appeal to those sold to religious violence, ‘The earth is older than all of us/Do not turn it on its head/Leave the crescent as we have met it/Do not drown the crescent/In the blood of children/Come down from your horse of hate.’

In the allegorical piece ‘What thunder said,’ Gomba weaves a simple folk narrative about the mighty and the dispossessed of the land and the just revenge of the dispossessed against the oppressors as it inevitably happens when the powerful repeatedly trample on the poor and believe they can always get away with it. But the small squirrel had the last laugh at the expense of the lioness, eagle and other animals who denied him a seat at their celebration and his revenge when its turn came.

In Gomba ‘Gun policy,’ a note of desperation creeps into the matter as innocent people are pushed to the wall and demand to fight back at the forces oppressing them. ‘Ugbegun’ which he dedicates to the last political activist, writer and don, Prof. Festus Iyayi, is moving as it explores the callousness of society that sacrifices its best. For Ugbegun people from where Iyayi hails, the poet salutes, as well as, mourn with them for bearing such a lion child cut down too soon. He sings, ‘Ugbegun, we bring your scion to you/We bring him wrapped in/The peal of silence/…Ugbegun, your child is sown in/Your fertile womb again/Let there be the miracle/Of the seed-corn’.

Gomba’s poetry at once teases, goads and cackles with life. Its imageries are homely and piquant and handy. The poetry is also very prosaic and conversational. But in all, there is joy in reading Gomba’s poetry that roves on all subjects.