Alayo

Eyo, the Yoruba say Rejoice!

Everything I write here is true, even when the facts have been distorted by time and memory. It is all a remembrance and might not be true, does it matter? Because I write about my journey from the first day I ever wrote, from that point where I began to look upon myself as a writer; a creative hand of nature whose primal ordinance was to seek, find, take back every form of love and hope and put all of these in the public where everyone can share. This is a journey that has taken me to places; the deserts, mire, trenches and plateau of creative living.

I will like to tell a story about myself, this story is supposed to help me remember my story. I was only twelve when I wrote my very first poem, Island of Peace though I had already copied some poems from an African pioneer anthology. I wrote this piece with so much delight, the writing itself began in the afternoon during the break time. I sat back on my seat and just saw a flash of birds and began to write about them. It became a thirty line piece; I happily shared this with my English Teacher who asked that I read this in front of other twelve year olds who weren’t concerned about the poem or the island I wrote about. It didn’t matter to me; I created something that was worth the read. This feeling of gladness and duty stayed alive in my thoughts and propelled me to write and write and write.

So I began writing, every day and on every subject. It didn’t make any sense at first but later I got close friends to look at what I was writing. I never really listened to what they had to say, I just wanted to write; to vent that consuming gladness in a book. I soon bought myself a huge note and a pen with several ink colours. I named this book my poem book and presented this to every guest who visited the house and as a curator guided them through each piece. In those moments, that consuming gladness was stirred again and burst out in my interaction with my audience. I loved those moments as much as I loved those poems.

I began reading early and difficult books too. I was only seven when I picked what was supposed to be a difficult book, The Trials of Jero by Wole Soyinka. I remember those moments clearly how I had struggled to read the first two pages and had to check up the word ecstasy for the way it was used to describe a character. Soon, I settled with this work and thoroughly enjoyed it especially its richness of language, style and plots. I moved to the next one, The Lion and the Jewel and for the first time in my life I understood the social codes of Yoruba life. I read other books too, so many plays from Wole Soyinka and Ola Rotimi. I read many titles from Eddie Iroh and the children fascinating story of Achebe’s Chike and the River.

This is how Wole Soyinka became one of my major influences very early in my life. I always longed to read his works for its wealth of language, Yoruba beliefs, style and vision. This created wells of bursting gladness and primed me to chase after the delight of writing. I wrote many poems and also began writing plays for my class at school. There was an eagerness to write more and read more and that I did.

The highpoint came for me to perform Wole Soyinka’s Abiku in my third year in Secondary School. I had started rehearsals for the performance of this poem, from the first point of handling the script, it seemed like the kind of performance I really wanted energetic, complicated, fun and highly combustible. I didn’t mention I will be performing this part at home for fear that my mother will spoil the fun by insisting that the part is taken from me or even raising an uproar with the other parents about disbanding the play. It was the speech day and here we were invited to perform, here I was; I walked into the stage dressed in hand-made regalia and reeled out the first verse. My mother recognized me and her expressions grew from anger to amazement and then to admiration. I delivered a performance and gave a bow. She clapped the loudest and at home I was served a morsel of Iyan and given orientation on the kind of performance a child of God should be involved in.

That Performance opened up more wells of gladness and really I got into that Alayo Feeling. I wanted to do much more. To wide acclaim, I became the president of the Literary and Drama Society and wrote a lot more, by now I had written over a thousand poems which have gone all missing now. I wrote and directed more plays in and out of school. I even wrote for the church once and got some rebuke for writing such a play from a minister. After the backlash, I felt very proud of my work because it disagreed with the notion of drama for the church and called the attention of adults. I wrote the kinds of plays they wanted in the church at other times but they never made me feel like the one I was criticized for. Still, I wrote.

I tried my hands on several genres of writing irrespective of my preoccupation as a poet. Poetry felt like a calling to me, a prompting to be intense, simple and precise. Poetry made everywhere home to me in writing. It seemed the most difficult and useful to me once I agreed with myself that I could hear myself more clearly in my poetry than in other genres. I didn't want to be bored so I reinvented a new way to write my poetry. I made them clout about anything and became very political, it was very difficult not to be political considering the kind of writers I read. This was the easiest way to address the society I thought because politics tends to affect us more than anything else.

My book God must be a poet is probably the biggest decision I made before my eighteenth birthday. It was more important than my writing so I approached it with all the motivation I could muster. It started this way. It became important for me to force my work down people’s throat and the easiest way to do will be to publish. I picked up a few collections of poetry published in recent times and chose the quality of publishing I thought will befit my work and stormed off to Ibadan to find a publisher. I was only Seventeen and was scared to fail at it. I didn't think about rejections after all, if I got rejected I will try again and that is what I did. I thrusted forward before each publisher explaining why I should be published, I was just as passionate as I moved from one publisher to another, looking for that person who will just see the visions I had put on that manuscript.

The book God must be a poet represents my transition as a writer, I chose from a number of works I had written from when I was fifteen until my eighteenth birthday. The progress of that work moved from innocence into admiration for nature, love and community living to activism, divine and all I didn’t understand as a young person. That book captured my journey and overwhelmed me with hopes for the future. It was not a great book but it was my first book. I wrote the book, published it and paid for it by missing lunch for the entire first year of university. This is what it continues to represent for me, that time in my life I did what I couldn't do without. I remember holding this book in my hand at the first book reading, I felt that stubborn gladness, that leap of motivation and that peace that said to me, Yes, this was possible after all but how come it took the world so much time to realise you and this book.

This book exposed me in many ways; many read this work and gave such recommendation for the work. I attracted new friends and also more functions. Guest trouped into my room and sat to discuss their dreams of getting published. Many of these people were artists including dancers, musicians and photographers. I was the one who benefitted the most in those conversations, this impacted my creative process. I wrote even more and got featured in some literary magazines. I wrote a few reviews about works of other writers and soon settled for a new role.

This is one of those things that made me more humble because I began to see myself a member of a tribe of creative people who needed each other. I also added more influences Chris Abani by extension James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Yusuf Kamounyakaa, Ben Okri, Lola Shoneyin, and Lucille Clifton. I followed Jazz music culture those of Miles Davies, Billy Holiday, Charlie Parker and Winton Marsalis. While I was held on jazz, I remembered how my childhood was filled with horns from Fela Kuti so I started studying Afrobeat Music. The influence of Afrobeat Music caught up with me, so I got involved in black history and was particularly drawn to Malcolm x, Marcus Garvey, Diop, Kwame Toure and Thomas Sankara. The learning of this historical broke me and changed me to a different kind of writer; it seemed more attractive to be a revolutionary.

The frustrations from studying black history soon was tempered when I came in touch with spoken word poetry; Poetry in its home and at its prime. Listening to Bassey Ikpi, Sarah kay and Suheir Hammed spurred my writing. I became more energetic, happier but intense. I soon was commissioned to write for the Matriculation Ceremony of my university for three years, I worked with fresh men on a spoken word presentation. This healed me and brought me redemption. I wrote one more play about black history and directed this in my final year at the University, the cast and crew have continued to talk about how that story made them see themselves as Africans for the first time.

When did I lose all these joys? This is a question that is both confusing and puzzling, in writing this story. This is what I am trying to unravel from the rest of the story. I graduated school and began to think about other things that were also important and these things became more important than my writing. I guess I wanted my writing to give me more than it had given in the past. I travelled across several states in the country carrying out other important duties, like speaking to people about their goals and personal effectiveness. It was duty I felt was important and it also created a different kind of interaction, addressing other issues I might well have been interested for some time. I began having new conversations, some of them unlearned me, destroyed me (literally), eroded me and molded the new psyche I am putting on parole in this piece.

Having these conversations helped me to Alayo. I understand Alayo as a simple, sheer human spirit that is never satisfied because it continues to give more to life. I thought I began to give more to life by trying to achieve just the same goals I wanted my writing to achieve. With this, my writing became almost irrelevant in the scheme of things considering that it was meant to be the Holy Grail of my personality, and may be my future. I had only seen myself as one thing, a writer and nothing else. Yet again, the reality was different; I became everything else except being a writer. What a huge disappointment it became for me! This disappointment wasn’t intended to be for long. It was meant to end itself abruptly instead it lingered and suckled me of all my creative sap until I became a wretch, a joyless one, a masquerade and the last note of a sad music. End of Story

Eyo Greets: I rejoice for you, I rejoice for me too!

This is a simple truth about the situation I am in right now: I love writing and I think that I will only be able to live more fulfilling life by writing. I will state that writing isn’t the only thing I want to do even though it is tempting for me. I will be engaged in other occupations anyways as named by this modern era but it wound not take me away from writing. Writing might not be my first occupation but it will remain a constant hunger, a longing that will never be satisfied yet yield so much delight in my soul for the privilege of penmanship. I will begin to chase after the delight of a lover’s spirit, this is the way I will approach my art.

I will rejoice and remain in rejoicing like one who is performing the legendary Eyo’s Play. I will always take part in that procession that leads to delight. I have no concern that I might have lost that path I once travelled but I am willing to jump at it again and cut out new pathways, forge new tunes and capture new visions for those who are willing to see things in my direction. I will adorn myself in regalia of pure admiration for this journey that has been rekindled in my spirit, this I will display in the street, first creating someplace everyone can rejoice or at least show that there is a possibility for everyone to rejoice. I rejoice.

I will join the procession that leads to delight, Like a Lover. I will rejoice at the first point where I join the others in procession, I will greet them and jump like a spirit in the sky. I will begin to recall the meaning of each poem I have written and sing about the new ones that will be written. I will sing each line out and not be scared that they will be lost in the streets because the poems are for the streets already. I will show the street the rejoicing of their spirits in the sky. I will show them how love is born, how it is sown and it births love. Love is a spirit, it belongs to no one, it belongs to everyone so as it elopes I will chase after it and hold it by its tails until it erupts and stings me in my heart.

I will replace my legs for they are not enough to chase after the delight of love’s spirit. I will become water and flood the entire streets with words spoken, words born from delight. I will lighten up the sky with the rain of my excitement and speak with everyone in their souls. I will sing the songs that were forgotten, songs that breed our victory over the limits of man. These songs will be reverberated in the air, in the lungs of each one of us so that we will breathe and live well, aware of the beautiful songs we all are, we are songs on a procession.

I will rejoice for the word, I will rejoice with the world. There has never been a time as this for delight will slip through the lips of men. It will permeate and lavish our common soul. I rejoice with the world.

Eyo is tall enough for delight’s chase

The spirit of the one who rejoices is tall enough to see through the hearts of others and purge them of their no-joy life, this is even true. My only proof of this is my belief.

You will hear this when Eyo Prays

As we live in this world, may we find the spirit that will make us make run to happiness and love, for this is what makes the world habitable. May we be called names reserved for noblemen, names that tell about what stories we have been able to destroy because we chose to rejoice in these times when joy is not an item of commerce.

As we live, may we find the courage to be true and trust that we can experience all the joys of the world: the birth of every new child of thought, the kindling of every man’s hope and explosion from all of the dreams combining to manufacture more love and more rejoicing.

We shall not celebrate alone, we shall rejoice with everyone and we shall rejoice in ourselves too. We shall not be tired of chasing the delight of being alive, the hope of weaving our thoughts into any kind of art. Our art shall not be lost in the misery of the world, we will yet chase after the joys of art, we will rejoice with the world. We will rejoice.

Here is what I will simply say to you, I rejoice with you and I rejoice with myself too.

Eyo oh!