| Diego Okenyodo’s “Subversive Poetry” launches Saturday! |
By Jim Pressman  Each time yours truly attends an event involving a gathering of “the tribe of writers,” one insists on being introduced as a failed writer who has decided to show due regard for those who do good literature, by reporting them. I also enjoy doing it for other producers of arty stuff: visual and performing arts, music and of course plenty of noise-making on gender-related issues. Iconoclastic pharmacist-critic and now published poet, Odoh Diego Okenyodo, reminds you of the likes of Samuel Beckett and other “avant-gardistes” [advance guard or vaguard] of literature, but in his own case, poetry: experimental, innovative to a level of (positive) “subversion” – naughty, naughty! His post-modernist approach is a deconstructionist modus operandi, indeed a demystification of sorts, of the poet and his song (s). Little surprise you may say, this coming from a product of the Creative Writers’ Club at Ahmadu Bello University where, as one of the executives, he was once expelled on alleged (but false [?]) charges of “publishing disparaging articles capable of undermining peace and security on campus.” As a reporter, reviewer, translator/interpreter, I never cease to feel that doing my professional duties in these categories is like playing the traitor – if you are familiar with the Italian dictum, a truism, really: “tradutore, tradittore!” [Translator, traitor!] Today, in a rebelious manner akin to the temperament which I share with the poet in question, I refuse to play the betrayal game so that you also refrain from playing lazy: come one, come all to the public presentation of From a Poet to its Creator [with a small c, please, no blasphemy here!] (2008, www.hybun.com, price not stated), Diego’s first collection of poems/songs from which I leave you these two excerpts to whet your appetite (you must check out the pages yourself, sorry oh!): From, “Subverted Poem”: On the leeward sideOf a slanted metaphor Lay the enemies of a verse in ambush Arm… w.t. erasers, shredders Vile language …. how they …terpret it subject of the war From: What happens to a poem postponed?” A poem is justice It is a concentrate of sincerity A poem is stomach acid, an ulcer Truth burning to be told …. Postponed poetry is the poetry of the ill-fated poet’s poem For it shall find its true poet See you at Rockview Hotel in Abuja, Saturday June 13, for the public presentation of this subversive poet’s first book of songs… I hope he does this standing, though, all of his six feet. A la prochaine, alors? |
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