Poetry both timely and timeless
IN A JOURNEY OF DREAMS BY BIODUN OLUMUYIWA (Zacchaeus & Caroline Publishers)
Biodun Olumuyiwa is the writer whom time forgot. He has only this year brought out his debut collection of poetry, In a Journey of Dreams. The book was published in Ibadan, by his own imprint, Zacchaeus & Caroline Publishers, which is named after his parents. And yet, Olumuyiwa’s work as a writer of poetry, plays, short stories and articles had begun to appear in print — chapbooks, anthologies, magazines and newspapers — in Nigeria in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the period during which he composed the poetry of his prime. And then came silence.
Having completed his undergraduate studies in 1991 — the year his father died — Olumuyiwa was posted to Calabar, the port city that is the capital of Cross River state in southern Nigeria, for his National Youth Service Corps programme. After youth service, Olumuyiwa turned away from the literary scene for several years; although he continued to write poems from 1992 till about five years ago, he did not publish them anywhere. Nevertheless, his service experience inspired Calabar — September ’91, a poem in his new collection that uses alliteration and assonance, metaphor and rhetorical questions to evoke an atmosphere of dislocation, ambivalence and uncertainty:
“I crossed the girdle to the terrace of your heart but I am greeted only by the dullness of your liquid laughter — is there a pain which I do not see in the creeping ripples of your laughter?
Canard of Canaan, shawl of twilights, wet pavements of candle dreams, tell me, do you mourn forever?”
Olumuyiwa has been something of a shape-shifter, not just in the variety and quality of his work, but also in terms of his name(s). He was born Godwin Afolabi Abiodun Eniayewun in the ancient city of Abeokuta, capital of Ogun state in southwestern Nigeria, in 1965. In September 1991 he became a born-again Christian and, in June 1998, changed his (Yoruba) surname from Eniayewun to Olumuyiwa “because a deeper understanding of my Christian faith showed that the image presented by the meaning of my surname was not in harmony with my Christian belief”. The name Eniayewun translates as “A person desired by the world”; Olumuyiwa means “God brings this”, ”God brought this” or “God made this possible”.
All the same, it was as Biodun Eniayewun that he had his article, “NYSC Camp in Retrospect”, published in the October 30, 1991 edition of National Concord, a Lagos-based national newspaper that is now defunct. His poetry was published in the Daily Times, another Lagosbased national newspaper, and in
Anapoint, the literary journal of the Ogun state branch of the Association of Nigerian Authors.
After elementary education in Ondo and Lagos, Olumuyiwa attended secondary school in Abeokuta. In 1987, he gained admission to what was Ogun State University (now Olabisi Onabanjo University), Ago-iwoye, graduating with a BA honours degree in English in 1991. While at Ago-iwoye, he was a member of the university’s writers’ workshop, founded by poet and English lecturer Sesan Ajayi. In his own poetry collection A Burst of Fireflies (1991), Ajayi describes his most gifted student as “soul-mate, fanciful chronicler/ of septic canticles of agony”.
The writers’ workshop, especially through its cyclostyled chapbook series, nurtured talents such as Eniayewun, Sina Oyadiran, Anuoluwakemi Orimoloye, Olumide Akinwunmi, Ademola Aderemi, Segun Ebietomiye, Wale Ajayi, Segun Sotuminu and Alric Adeniyi Amona. The latter two, unlike Olumuyiwa, appear in Voices from the Fringe (1988), the anthology of contemporary Nigerian poetry in English, edited by Harry Garuba.
Being a little different with poetry and Deetlefs wines
“The D doesn’t stand for Difficult, it stands for Different because we like to do things a bit differently,” says Deetlefs Wine Estate’s seventhgeneration owner, Kobus Deetlefs.
Wine shouldn’t be difficult, he believes.
“Too often wine gets put on a pedestal, people overcomplicate it and lose sight of just enjoying a wine because it’s what YOU like.”
The Reserve Chenin Blanc (R195) is deep and rich, showing its oldvine pedigree and 10 months matured on the lees in barrels.
It is a superb wine, complex with depth of flavour and creamy texture but not heavy. It has a touch of butterscotch on intensely fragrant nose, fruit on the palate leaning more towards sour apricot, zesty pineapple, complemented by gentle oak spiciness.