The passions of poet Abubakar Othman

Characteristic of a romantic poet, there was plenty of passion in the man, but that evening, not for love but for politics. He wrong-footed his audience by choosing not to read from his poetry collection, The Passions of Cupid and instead served up his unpublished collection, Termites of the House – exploiting the title of […]

Characteristic of a romantic poet, there was plenty of passion in the man, but that evening, not for love but for politics. He wrong-footed his audience by choosing not to read from his poetry collection, The Passions of Cupid and instead served up his unpublished collection, Termites of the House – exploiting the title of Wale Okediran’s novel, Tenants of the House.

Like Okediran’s novel, Othman’s poetry satirises the misdeeds of Nigeria’s lawmakers. The first two poems especially, “Termites of the House” and “House of Babylon” take humorous swipes at the corruption and avarice prevalent in the house while “Bottle and Gavel” compares the National Assembly to a bar. These poems left the audience reeling with laughter and admiration at the poet’s wisdom.

From the ambience, there was a general agreement with the poet on his take on political matters in the country. But some of his views cut across as controversial.

“Crocodile Tears” for instance chides the United States for its “hypocritical” grieving over the 9/11 tragedy. It was blunt and perhaps some may say cruel but the poet is not famous for mincing words. (And ironically, a day later, the US went and shot dead Osama Bin Laden).

“Buried without a Grave” drawing from the death of a senator last year, portrays images of the rejection corrupt public officials face even  in death in a haunting warning to the big men running or ruining the country.

Othman’s take on women is also controversial. Drawing from Pandora of Greek mythology, who it was said released all the evils in the world and his reference to the fairer sex as “daughters of evil” led to his being accused of stereotyping by someone in the audience. The poet does not agree to the charge, of course.

But love poetry flowed after all. The audience were given the liberty to select any one of the poems in The Passions of Cupid and the poet complied by reading them.

The event came to an end with the usual raffle where lucky winners were presented with books.

The AWF Guest Writer Session comes up every last Saturday of the month.