Poets and Poetry

Gabriel Okara

Gabriel Imomotimi Gibaingbain Okara is a modern poet, a novelist and a writer, Nigerian by birth. Okara's poems portray the true picture capturing "the moods, sights and sounds of Africa."

Okara's poetry is usually original, on influenced by other poets, Okara's poems show "great sensitivity perceptive judgement and a tremendous energy" His most famous poem PIANO AND DRUMS highlights his sensitivity, judgement of the life style prevailing by the influence of the foreign Western Civilization.

Most of the Africans stuck to their own traditions but some Africans living in urban areas got absorbed in the traditions and the lifestyle of the Europeans. Okara tries to highlight the tradition introduced by the Europeans and the "Misconceptions and the tediousness" faced by the young generation.

In PIANO and DRUMS, the world of the traditional Africans symbolized by the DRUM and that of the Europeans by the PIANO, the mystic rhythm of the DRUM "The mystic rhythm, urgent, raw like bleeding flesh, speaking of Primal youth--" The Poet assumes that the familiar rhythm of the drum is inherited in the blood of the African".

Okara has employed a simple diction style expressing his ideas in an elegant manner. The impressive words creating the appropriate imagery and the environment involved.

"Then I hear a wailing piano solo speaking of complex ways". The sounds produced by a piano with its various tempo complex, musical notes and the melodies sounds admired by the Westerner. But to Okara it is different.

"A tear-furrowed concerto" His confusion of the Western music is symbolized by the words "diminuendo" "counter point". Where as the JUNGLE DRUM arouses his inner conscience innovates him making him enthusiastic. "Often torn between the 'Jungle Drums' and the concerto, he is hesitant to embrace a syncretic, neoAfrican culture.

The title of his slim but dense collection, THE FISHERMAN'S INVOCATION (1978) is his most ambitious; the collection shared a common wealth Poetry Prize" (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

His poetic novel THEVOICE (1964) "Okolo's hallucinatory quest through Sologa ends in self sacrifice and death". The novel's "PSEUDO NAIVE tone" is the result of a kind of "linguistic experiment" Okara's children's books seem to be his contribution to Nigerian Literary Culture, LITTLE SNAKE and LITTLE FROG (1981) AN ADVENTURE TO JUJU ISLAND (1981) are a massive contribution to Nigerian culture.

The management of the Rivers State Broadcasting Corporation, the first FM station in black Africa was taken over by Okara, whose contribution to his society and to his mother country promoting Gabriel Okara to the peak of honour as poet and writer, who "incorporated African thought, religion, folklore and imagery into both his verse and prose"

by C. Ekanayake,
Retd. Specialist Teacher English,
St. Anne's College,
Kurunegala.