It isn’t that I have never written a poem in the absence of melancholy. I have. But there is a way melancholy pokes into your soul; it makes you feel things; it lifts the curtain over your eyes and makes you see the world with vivid alacrity. There is a way it sequestrates the feelings out of you and turns them into words. There is a way melancholy does these that joy simply doesn’t know how to. Melancholy is poetry’s favorite child.
Honestly, this first question got me thinking because during my childhood, I disliked poetry a lot. For me, it felt really boring and unrelatable. And then one day at school, we were asked to write a poem on theme of "The Sun". I was in Primary six as at that time and fortunately for me, I was perceived as a "serious" student. My only intention behind writing that poem that day was to obtain my full marks for my assessment.
Ever since I was in Nursery school, I fell in love with those nursery rhymes and songs that even at home, I was always with my book simply because I wanted to recite it.
However as I grew older shyness overcame the confidence that I initially had and I did not get to interact with poetry again up until I got to university.
Initially, poetry was just another subject in school, words strung together, one after the other. As a child, my mind was more focused on the empty cans waiting to be filled with sand or crushing biscuits into paste to bake into cake. I don’t know where the concept of time immemorial fits into the corners of my memory, but words have always lived somewhere in my heart. I just didn’t know exactly where, so I never bothered to visit.
Ikeogu Oke was a Nigerian poet and journalist who died in Abuja on November 27th, 2018, at 51. He hailed from Ohafia in south-eastern Nigeria and was considered a deeply spiritual person. He sought to embody traditional African beliefs, notably wearing the Ohafia war dress to high-profile events to highlight his Igbo heritage.
So, I understand what it means to come into the peace of wild things – like lakes – who do not tax themselves with the afterthought of thoughts.
