Lunatics have misled our literary scholars–Ossie Enekwe
By HENRY AKUBUIRO (akuhen@sunnewsonline.com)
Sunday, December 16, 2007

•Professor Enekwe Photo: Sun News Publishing

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Though Professor Ossie Enekwe of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), is better known as a poet, he is a versatile artist. As a schoolboy, his wizardry in visual art led to his temporary employment as a painter by a roadside painter at Coal Camp, Enugu, where he grew up, painting lorries and buses and writing names on them. He was also a member of a church choir, and his exploits went as far as Onitsha in the 1950s.

His oeuvre includes five published works in poetry and prose: The Last Battle and Other Stories (a collection of short stories), Come Thunder (novel), Broken Pots, Marching to Kilamanjoro, and Gentle Vace, Come to Me (poetry).

Compared to his contemporaries, Niyi Osundare, Femi Osofisan, Odia Ofeimun or Chimalum Nwankwo, he is self-effacing. At this year’s ANA convention at Disney Hotel, Owerri, Imo State, he is strolling anonymously to a nearby hall in the hotel for an evening programme when a former student of his draws my attention to him with glee, “That’s Professor Ossie Enekwe.”

True to his quiet appearance, he talks mildly. The unlit garden where I invite him for a quick conversation is silhouetted by the light from the main building some fifty metres away, and this calm locale lends itself to a cerebral exchange.

Professor Enekwe belongs to the Okigbo School of Poetry noted for lyrical and symbolic engagement, so I wonder in an instant whether he has taken any departure in his latest offering. His dull visage lightens up as he speaks, “There hasn’t been a major departure, because some of the poems that are in this collection, Gentle Vace, Come to Me, have been published in some anthologies many years ago. Rather, what we have is more sophistication.”

He admits that many people have compared him to late Chris Okigbo, but he doesn’t see himself as a clone. “I know that people have compared me to Okigbo, but I don’t know how to imitate him. It is just that somehow he is right in saying that African culture is also significant and should not be discarded.”
In his first year at UNN, Okigbo was still alive and was on the staff of the university, but he cannot recall ever meeting him face to face. “What I like about Okigbo is the use of images. It is almost like an artist painting, showing you images. It is not like the discursive type of poetry. The total environment is expressed in his poetry, and you get the ideas from what you experience and not what you are told,” he says reverently.

Okigbo’s prosody also turns him on. In fact, the title of his novel, Come Thunder, was borrowed from Okigbo’s poetry, which goes to further confirm his deep liking for his literature. “When I was writing that novel, the experience of Okigbo’s poetry inspired me in many ways. Even when soldiers were at the heart of the story, the experience of Okigbo’s poetry was always behind me,” he admits.

In one of the essays he wrote many years on Okigbo’s poetry, “The Imaginative Identification in Okigbo’s Poetry,” he asserts that Okigbo has many dimensions, with rich images covering different cultures (Christianity and indigenous religions). “His images were taken from the Old Testament in the Bible. There was no effort to restrict the impact of any culture or image on the poet. Everything was absorbed and transformed,” he informs.

As a writer, does he write from a particular worldview? Professor Enekwe gasps for a moment. “Well, I believe a writer must use his work to influence and improve his society,” he replies.

I get him to talk about recent departures in Nigerian literature, “If you look at the writings of Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe, you will see that they are very much concerned with the survival of our people and our culture. In other words, for them, literature has a function to transform the society. The writer is not just there to entertain, but to have an impact on society. But the young ones think that literature makes nothing happen, an idea they have taken from some European authors.”

The future of committed literature in Nigerian and African literature reechoes in this conversation. He begins, “For instance, when they read Shakespeare, they think he wasn’t interested in politics, but if you study Shakespeare in historical context, you will find that Shakespeare was very much involved in politics and changing society. Great many poets and writers in Europe and America have been involved in writing to change their societies.

“What happens now is that many young people who don’t understand the history of the development of literature and the arts tend to separate culture from what they call aesthetics. When we talk of aesthetics, it does not mean that something has no social value or political function. There is nothing wrong with a writer writing about society, trying to change society. It is the normal thing. Writing started as a functional thing.

“It is very sad that our people are totally disoriented, and the disorientation spreads from top to bottom. Many people don’t understand what literature is all about. The fact that somebody has a PhD does not mean that the person understands literature. For you to understand literature, you have to understand the human society, human politics and human psychology, and you can’t study literature in the sky; you have to understand it from the point of view of human society and human interaction. Do you think that those people who preach in the church will succeed without literature? Do you think you can reach anybody without literature?” he queries.

Worried by the way our writers and scholars use the concept of aesthetics, he is planning to write a paper on it. “They don’t understand what it means,” he reaffirms.
Should our writers tailor their works to a particular literary school? He shakes his head a little. His response confirms his opposition to it, “There is no imposition. A writer may come in and introduce something that will change society or will improve the styles. When we study some of the major authors like Charles Dickens, Bernard Shaw, and others, we take them seriously because of the contributions they made, not because of how they copied the previous traditions.

“This is the problem with deconstruction and structural theory, which has even worsened the situation, because many of them don’t even understand what literature is all about. Somebody, maybe, a lunatic or a drunk, proposes a theory in a hotel where he is drinking, and, at once, our people will pick it.” His comments cannot be easily waved off because he has had much experience both as a writer and scholar.
As a student at Colombia University, USA, he took courses in Philosophy and studied Aesthetics. “As a writer, when you study Aesthetics, you understand things better. It is a fantasy for anybody to be talking about literary schools in this age.

What we are saying is for the writer to be serious, to use skills well. If somebody is a singer, you can at least tell him to open his mouth so that he can be heard. But you are not going to tell him what he is going to sing or how he is going to sing it.
“Chimamanda, for instance, has achieved something by developing her talent in creating the novels that have brought her awards. She didn’t have to follow Achebe point to point. Although she acknowledged all the writers she read their books when she was researching on her novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, she didn’t imitate anybody; she created her own.

That’s what we want, and not somebody pontificating. I have been the editor of Okike since 1984, which means I have been editing for so long. As a student at Colombia University, I edited a journal called Columbia Reader, publishing the works of professors and fellow students, so I understand what writing is,” he says half-smugly.
In his creative works, he is always talking about the society, exploitation, maladministration, corruption, and so forth. Professor Enekwe is not a prolific writer.

Maybe, it is because he doesn’t compile his works until he has published them elsewhere. “I publish as I write them, but eventually I assemble them,” he tells me. “You will find many styles in my writing, but one distinctive feature is that I try to be as clear as possible, because I believe poetry is not just to be written down; it is meant to be expressed. If somebody sees poetry as something to be written down, then there is a problem.

“And this is one of the problems of some of those who claim to understand literature, who think that literature is only literature when it is written down. The verbal aspect of literature is very important. In the works of Soyinka and Okigbo, you will see this idea that poetry started off by being spoken. If you want to be a great poet, and you just write things without verbalizing them, you won’t succeed, because speech is very powerful,” he stresses.

Looking at his wrist watch, he realizes that the evening programme he was hitherto going to before I cornered him will start any moment, so there is urgency on his countenance. “The idea of copying foreign ideas is our bane. The structuralist theory of literature was developed in a certain culture and society in relation to their problems. So, we should be autonomous in our literature and be ourselves, not always imitating others. When we imitate others, we get into troubles,” his voice trails off. Then he ambles off, anonymous as he came.