in the nation’s history. Unfortunately, when memory “wriggles” in pain, this is of no
concern to the autocratic regime. But the sanity of the poet while the nation is under the
headship of “the demented” is not in doubt. This is because he is able to live up to
Nietzsche’s model by which he is able to “burn” the past into himself and make it
available to all as a warning (Nikolas Rose 1998: 179). In this case, the conscious
embeddedness/internalization of the past becomes one way by which one is able to take
on the challenges of the future, knowing that it is natural for the past to repeat itself, even
if not in absolute variables of sameness. For thoughts of exile, bloodshed and destruction
that the memory of the war provokes, the poet warns the autocratic figure in power and
all others that might want to be involved in prosecuting another macabre dance akin to
the Civil War:
Whoever recalls the rampaging bull
Rumbling talks crunching bone in dust...
Let him watch these seasons
Let him tread softly
Into this dance
Of masquerades (31-3)At another level, it is important to remark that Oguibe’s poetry is significant in the way it
resolves the question of the possible exile that may result from an African writer’s use of
English. The observation stems from the poet’s conscious attempt to reconcile the
apparent linguistic drift through the privileging of African mythological resources as well
as other African verbal art forms which all come together to give his poetry a unique
flavour and texture. Thus, while he may have alluded to the Christian mythology of the
Triumphal Entry, he has however domesticated it in a way that speaks to the immediate
reality on the ground. Moreover, by invoking African myths like those of Anukili,
Iyalode, among others, Oguibe demonstrates how a metaphoric liberation and return from
cultural exile can be garnered, even where the medium of expression is patently foreign.
In the third part of the title poem hope dims more and more as “In a land of mad men /
There’s only anguish and pain/ While silence paves the road/ To the commoner’s grave”
(35). The subsequent segment sings of nothing but the broadcasting of “seeds of terror”;