Niyi Osundare

thumb Niyi Osundare (born 12 March 1947) is a Nigerian poet, playwright, literary critic, and professor. Quotes Poetry matters because it never fails to remind us of the common colour of the blood in our veins, the violence of hunger, the ugliness of evil, the frailty of our forests, the vulnerability of our rivers, and the sigh of our Planet. Poetry never forgets, and never ceases to remind the Future of its debt to the Past. Wherever Justice is hidden, you can trust poetry to seek and find it. For in its lyrical habitation lives our Lamp of Life. Niyi Osundare speaking on why poetry matters Leadership is a problem here. But followership is also a problem. Nigerians are too docile. We could be ruled by a cockroach. All the money that has been stolen in this country is the money that should be used to build roads, hospitals and other infrastructure. Ours is like a country stuck in a medieval jungle. All our money has been stolen. We are saturated with kleptocracy. It is time to wake up. Osundare reacting to Nigerians being too docile "One hasn't become a writer until one has distilled writing into a habit, and that habit has been forced into an obsession. Writing has to be an obsession. It has to be something as organic, physiological and psychological as speaking or sleeping or eating." Biography on his official website "The very calling of the artist/writer is a political statement; with writers from historically disadvantaged parts of the world, political consciousness becomes a social, almost existential imperative." Speaking on the social responsibility of writers "Moral apathy is no option. Silence is oftentimes an evasion of moral responsibility, an advertent or inadvertent complicity with those whose noise enslaves the world." On moral responsibility and silence "We are as implicated and committed by every word we utter, every word we write as we are by every word we fail to utter, every word we refuse to write." Reflecting on the responsibility of writers "I have been exceedingly lucky, with regards to the kind of good health I have had." Reflecting on turning seventy "It is by no means a mean achievement in a country where the male life expectancy is something between a dreadful 45 and 50 years." Speaking on ageing in Nigeria The Eye of the Earth(1986) And every toemark on the footpath, every fingerprint on every bark, the ropy climbers flung, breathlessly, from tree to tree, the haunting sound, and silence, of this sweet and sour forest, dig deep channels to the sea of memory. Forest Echoes, page 4 Here where yam wore the crown, in the reign of swollen roots, amid a retinue of vines and royal leaves; between insistent sky and yielding earth. the sun mellowed planting pageants into harvest march, a fiery pestle in his ripening hand. Harvestcall, page 17 Our earth has never lingered so dry, in the season of falling showers, clouds journey over trees and over hills, miserly with their liquid treasure The sky carries a boil of anguish. Let it burst. Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed, page 26 They too are the earth, the swansongs of beggars sprawled out in brimming gutters. they are the earth. under snakeskin shoes and Mercedes tyres They Too Are the Earth, page 42 Waiting Laughters(1990) I pluck these words from the lips of the wind. Ripe like a pendulous pledge; Laughter’s parable explodes in the groin. Of waking storms. Clamorous with a covenant of wizened seeds. Some laughters are very significant, page 2 Passports are passports. The Atlantic is a wilderness of barbed walls brooking no windows, its door of deafening steel. page 12 My song is space beyond wails, beyond walls, beyond insular hieroglyphs, which crave the crest of printed waves. page 25 And seasons which wax so loud with the eloquence of the sword, arrogant thrusts and chronictes of desperate gorings page 53 Waiting, still waiting, like the brown fable of rainless regions, the sun’s stony victory in the wilderness of fleeing dust page 92 External links Category:1947 births Category:Living people