When Udala Grows at St Peter’s Square

By Uche Mbah

Book: Udala

Author: Obu Udeozo

Publisher: Fab educational Books, Jos

Number of pages: 107

Reviewer: Uche Mbah

In Udala, Obu Udeozo crystalizes bonding spun from yarns on spiritual distaff-and immediately lands on his buttocks when he heard the call of the Udala elf. But that is only part of the story.

The other half of the story was already told by the poet himself when he broke his own rule to provide “ex Cathedra commentary” on his work.  It is not that the Poet lied but, dogged by the shadow of Infallibility, he went ahead to provide a front page glossary of local idioms that may become obfuscating Shibboleths to none native speakers of Igbo language. He celebrated life as a dance under the shade of local spices and celestial mystery-like Alexander Pope’s mock-epic poems where the trivial and the regal hold pride of place.

That, in itself, is the message of Udala: nothing is so insignificant that it does not merit attention. Thus when he in awe drools about the only Source of Infinite Intelligence, God, from whose “skirl/of mystic lights/and the spoken WORD/rocks, rivers and fruits/flow into/their millennial grid”-a rather prancing lampoon on the West Ponente, Bernini’s “Breath of God” at St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City-this is seen as a deliberate extension of the ex-cathedra metaphor.

That he prefaced the collection of Poems with a poem dedicated to himself and went ahead to make it the title theme shows his struggle to anchor the taproot of his seeking heart in his native soil while feeding the leaves of beauty in hyperbole-beauty, not in terms of pancake and catwalk but of sinews and sentinels. Thus in lightning, for example, he could not resist the Breath-Of-God metaphor: Bolt’s “farewell/symphonies” flashed past like “match Flare/in wind’s breath…” even though he pierced through the entire narrative with “gunshots”. Udeozo has proved an accomplished artist with a brush of white chalk and ink-fed feather poetic sculptor.

This is actually true in metaphor and song. He is an artist-literally-and mold his poetry with the dexterity of an African potter sitting on her coiled legs under the protection of the elf of an Udala tree. And the patterns must conform to the Universal, like a flint of shots from Michelle Obi’s bidders: “bidding eternity of cowries/over allegorical maidens/ with luscious aroma/of satellite and vermillion clouds/at your feet”-a cross-cultural bride price of dribble and passes.

He closed the “Akamgba” strophe with a Greek chorus of the refrain: “after chewing darkness/for seven years-like a catechumenical refrain which he was forced to chant carrying fire and water in the same mouth, a burden of “the seven tongues of fire/of poison, smiles, and holocaust”. His restless quest for the recognition of the infinite: “our precious LORD/mailed resurrection as proud witness/of the splendor of Christ/over calculations/culture and human clock” tares him with brushes that evoke the image of a poetic eagle on the wings of Pablo Neruda’s reluctant obsession with death.

For one who equates to Neruda’s voice-over (at least in an inclination of some of his strophes), he names names in his eulogies of simple folks pursuing their talents. The roll call is a mixed grill of cross-functionality-Chukwuma Soludo, Obiagaeli Ezekwesili, Mallam el-Rufai, Stephanie Okereke, and some heroines he plucked from obscurity-Lucy Maria Uzo, Patricia Dogun and Omolara. But he was careful to separate them into two groups-Uziza and mkpulu ose ora. While those he grouped under Uziza are socially spicy, they are the porridge of soup and spiced essence. But the Mkpulu ose ora group are self announcing-as, for example, El-Rufai, whom he described as mba ana abalu agu-the leopard who shrugs off all vituperations against him. The activities must not always be edifying. For example, El-Rufai presided over a period when “mortuary chorus of caterpillars” force “frying pans, bank drafts,  duplexes, Corner shops, Pam oil, electronics, Markets, kerosines and fabrics/ kneel before metallic Herod’s furnace of tears…” in his usual mock-epic style. But Soludo he weighs on a scale, balancing his goofs with his angelic works-goofs because he was a reluctant “Jonah’s Whale/inhaling God’s WORD…” and one who soothes our pains: “Our nerves are rinsed/by a strange melody/in this balm of angels…” For Dora Akunyili, the “Agulu goddess”, under whose watch “local sanctuaries of Wolves/in Kano, Onitsha and Port Harcourt/became sweet-smelling offerings/feeding the flames/of our LORD’s wrath”. She invokes the “mba ana abalu agu” monicker in a different milieu. For him, Akunyili belongs to Tennyuson’s Light Brigade: “Into the valley of death/rode the six hundred…”

Somewhat in the same light he viewed Obiageli Ezekwesili, whom he saw as “the real, real Juliet/and global rose” whose name is etched among the global register of indelible deeds. He concluded this part with an elegy to Keats, the single solitary sage saddled in non-African bridle. To him, Keats was “Vice President to Shakespear”. Enough said.

In the last strophe, he picked up the thread of West Ponente again, this time bringing out cymbals, lutes, trumpets, and, of course, the Long drum. Songs of “the WORD” breastfeeding our blindness opens our ears to the “idioms from Hellfire, spelling “hot” with a tongue forked into three. Here, the Jeremiah complex rules-the work could easily replace the book of lamentations. In his words, the prevailing deaths and murders are simply “cruel harvests/secretaries” awaiting “our savior Christ”. Prophesies are unheeded in a recalcitrant “ana agwa nti crisis”-the deaf-mute fatalists in the symbolism of fired spices.

Even the glimmer of hope in Africa, George Weah, has little impact when Nigeria is bedeviled with a crisis of apocalyptic proportions. Yet, sometimes lost for words in the description of what only the heart can see, he resorts to picture poetry-illustrations of the book of revelations with the intensity of the pictured lightning tearing holes in the pages and the mushroom of armageddon exposing the book of life. The dark pages of damnation fell below the altitude of Milton’s Paradise lost, while in the blank pages are nameless lost souls…then heaven at last for survivors after “the Trumpet Blasts/ate the earth.” Then follows a description of the glories of heaven: “airborne saints/upon wings of light/wafted solemn rallentando/across the skies…”

There is no gainsaying that Obu Udeozo’s Poetry is deeply etched into his Christian faith, though he leaves feeder roots of Igbo cosmology into that belief. He thus forms a bridge of convenience between the two. Like Angel Gabriel standing with one leg on the sea and one leg on the land to blow his Trumpet, Udeozo bridges the gap between Okigbo and Pablo Neruda…