For Grace Nichols
I
From love of Calypsos
Through theorizing about the
Middle-Passage
And amazing glimpses of the
ruins of a great house
I watched the new Oilgerian
game of death
But some call it the game of
life
Disembarking at ORT to an
implausible reception
By skeptical teams of
post-apartheid Customs and Excise!
“Ah! This way Sir” – I heard
one sister say to a brother.
“What have you brought from
Oilgeria?” She would like to know
But the bulging Ghana-Must-Go
had given away the game
“Eish! These Oilgerians think
they’re clever”, sister mouths wordlessly
Tubers of yams sprouted from
the bulging bag and brother feigned surprise
Cassava flour emerged trailed
by iru, okasi and assorted bush meat!
“What are these?”
Post-apartheid sister mouthed enraged
Nothing-to-deklare brother
smiled and embraced the empty Ghana-Must-Go!
It’s every day for the thief,
he retorted, without bitterness!
II
But just yesterday we were
theorizing about the colonial baggage
Blown wide open on the conveyor
belt – exposing decades of postcolonial angst
But now can we focus on the new
post- without remorse?
And is the post- in
post-colonial the post- in post-racialism?
Leaving my wazobia ways to
participate in this orgy of tricolored angst
And nollywood stars trailing
and cursing – not to mention
Sacrilegious
‘nothing-to-deklare’ sisters, joining the macabre dance.
In Jozi we shall all meet in an
arranged marriage of inconvenience
The lobola dance terminating at
ABSA – while we exchange
Knowing glances of notions of
home. Ah! Whatever I hang!
‘And what are these?’
post-racialist sister would like to know
‘Fixes’, nothing-to-deklare
brother retorted without contrition
‘You mean those things our
girls hang on their heads’ sister corrected
‘And don’t they hang
beautifully?’ he would like to know
And whatever I hang, he smiled
ruefully,
Is this what I shall call home?
Femi Abodunrin
Polokwane,
December 2012
Femi
Abodunrin is presently Professor of English Studies and Performing Arts at the
University of Limpopo, Turfloop Campus. He studied at Bayero University, Kano,
Nigeria and holds a PhD degree from Stirling University, Scotland, UK. He has
taught at universities in Nigeria, the UK, Germany, Malawi and Swaziland. His major
publications include Blackness: Culture, Ideology and Discourse (BASS, 1996, 2008).
After the completion of our book 'Splinters of a Mirage Dawn, An Anthology of Migrant Poetry of South Africa, we now invite for web based and print publication of Global Migrant Experiences in prosepoem and poem format.
As the title indicates, this volume is a collection of migrant poetry from South Africa. According to one of the editors, Naomi Nkealah, ‘this anthology was born out of a need to document, in poetic form, the vast experiences of migrants living in South Africa.’ True to its objective, the volume features twenty poets who migrated into South Africa, from different parts of the world.
Migration, as a subject, is complex. The circumstances that force people to move from one place to another differ from one person to the other. The physical as well as the emotional paths that they go through vary. As such, each poet interprets his/her experiences in an individual way. This makes it quite a mammoth task, on the part of the editors, to decide which piece to pick or leave out in an anthology of this nature.
As stated above, the main objective of this anthology is to ‘document, in poetic form’. Thus, over and above everything else, the final selection had to be based on the quality of the poetry. This anthology managed to attain that complex balance between subject matter and artistic quality.
There is also quite a lot of variety within that ‘confined space’ of one thematic focus.
The voices are so different, so varied, in their texture, tone, depth, aroma, and flavour. One’s emotions rise up and down, as one moves from one poet to the other. Some pieces make you drop a tear, while others make you chuckle through their ability to make a sad story very much light-hearted.
This anthology is a solid step in the overdue journey towards a world where we all sing from the same page, in our varied, individual voices.
