Eye of the Earth (1986), and Village Voices (1984) especially, are significant in this
direction. He, like others in this generation, clearly highlights the dissection between the
ambitions of the rich and the ruling class and the dispossession of the poor masses in
society. This is done by asserting that the lot of the poor is a direct consequence of the
ambitions and comfort of the rich and the ruling class.
It is in relation to the above that one must mention at this juncture the tendency on the
part of these poets to demystify the esoteric aura created around the art of poetry. Again,
Osundare’s “Poetry is” (1983:3-4) is germane here. As a representative poetic manifesto,
poetry must bear its meaning to all in society; hence, “poetry is/ man/ meaning/ to/ man”
Harry Garuba (2003:5). This populist tendency is perhaps best illustrated with Ofeimun’s
“Prologue”. Unlike his precursor of the first generation who sat on an alpine altitude from
which he textualized with grandiloquent mysticism, Ofeimun illustrates the need to make
the utility of his art common knowledge among his people. This he does by descending
from his esoteric height and sitting right in their midst:
I have come down
to tell my story by the fireside
around which
my people are gathered. ( The Poet Lied , 1)In the East and Central African sub-regions, military dictatorships were relatively less,
yet the regions experienced a consolidated tradition of civilian tyranny. The continual
drift in commitment on the part of the leadership was to expectedly produce a new poetic
tradition far from the narrative and expository rhetoric of David Rubadiri’s “Stanley
Meets Mutesa”, or the succeeding post-colonial socio-cultural conflict that p’Bitek’s
Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol dwelt upon. The selfish hedonistic tendencies of this
ruling class were to become the focus of Kenya’s Jared Angira “whose talent for apt and
felicitous phrasing combine with a sense of humour” (Senanu and Vincent 2003: 300),
and which found complement in his scathing sarcasm as shown in his collections: Juices
(1970), Soft Corals (1974), and The Year Goes By (1980). This view is best illustrated
perhaps with “No Coffin, no Grave”, a poem which combines the properties of dramatic
satire to show the folly of the esurient flair of the ruling class for material acquisition.