Niyi Osundare Remembers Katrina

 Bard and essayist, Niyi Osundare in his new book chronicles his experience in the Hurricane Katrina disaster

In normal circumstances, when poets write about tides and waves, they deplore crispy imageries in praise of their beauty. When they write about cities, it is always to sing of their boisterousness or serenity, and life in that place.

However, the events that led to the city of New Orleans in the United States of America being washed-over by flood in August 2005 were not usual. Niyi Osundare, scholar, poet, critic, dramatist and professor of English at the University of New Orleans, himself a victim of the Katrina gulf disaster, has recounted the grim experience in a new collection of poems, A City Without People…The Katrina Poems. Osundare was in Lagos to read poems from the book, which has just been released in the US.

The reading was interspersed with explanations, mostly of point of view, thematic preoccupation of the text and the situations that aroused his interest in the writing of each of the poems he read at the gathering.

The idea of the entire book, he explained, stems from the horror that he and his wife went through for six days, when they cowered in the attic of their house, while the whole city was almost submerged as water continued to gush into the city from the gulf.

From the point where they were bedraggled on the rafters, he said, they could see the murky water rising towards them, until the timely intervention of a neighbour who had come around the block to see what he could rescue from the ruins of what used to be his residence.

In poems as The Katrina Anthem, The Lake for My House, Water Never Forgets, Emergency Call 911, Osundare captures in concrete metaphors the catastrophic effects of that incident.

He draws his readers’ attention to the effects of the anger of nature, when people forget to obey it rules in a bid to squander resources. Osundare absolves the water of Katrina of the havoc it wreaked on the city, rather, he blames “developers and hungry capitalists, big-bellied billionaires,” who defaced the hitherto carefully planned city and altered the provisions made by the city planners to contend rising waves.

According to him, these unscrupulous class of people, “started stealing the land, draining and draining until they reduced the wetland to a strip.

“So today, when the winds are coming directly from the strip they hit the city. That is why hurricanes are becoming more and more virulent in New Orleans. What hit us in August 2005 was not an entirely natural disaster, it was mostly man and woman-made,” he said.

From another section, the poet laureate captivated the audiences’ attention with a verse tinged with appreciation of the goodwill of individuals who came to his aid in the course of his rehabilitation.

The poet explained that he conceived the poems as a way of extending his gratitude through his art to friends, acquaintances and well-wishers who contributed to ameliorating the material injuries inflicted on them by the dreaded hurricane.

As the evening wore on, the rendition of poetry dissolved into a plenary session, where the author answered questions from his listeners on various issues. At this time, the sequestered building, which had only one voice talking previously, came alive.

The subject centred on his psychological state while he was so close to death, his style of craft, as writer for the people, the impact of his childhood habitat on his work and his writing style, particularly as used to serenade about an event that paralysed an entire city.

Revellers wanted to know his reaction to the unending stay of Mugabe in power (incidentally, the Zimbabwean president handed Osundare the NOMA award plaque, which he won in Harare in 1991) and his attitude to religion.

The poet, who has authored over 19 books, elucidated on his mind set in the face of adversity. He noted that his response even though hope for rescue was dim, somehow, “Katrina will not have the last laugh.”

He explained that he stays on top of his craft because of his deep understanding of his native worldview. Thus, the essential elements that constitute his environment, he noted, play a key role in the modelling of his themes and the application of metaphors.

On the Mugabe saga, Osundare frowned at the long-serving leader’s failure to leave office at the appropriate time, but warned that there has to be a comprehensive analysis of the Zimbabwean power imbroglio because, in his view, Britain which was a party to the Lancaster agreement has not kept to the terms, most of which border on land reforms and distribution among the people. He rounded off the session by praising those who practise Christianity “like Jesus Christ, a man I admire,” directing a vituperative tirade at revival evangelists whose message is reduced to mere material prosperity.

Indeed, for Osundare, the book itself is a triumph of the human spirit over exasperating force of human trial. The poet states conqueringly in the preface to the text that: “For although Katrina may have taken all that I had away, it never succeeded in taking away my tongue, and sense of proportion and justice.”

The ceremony, which held at LifeHouse, a gregarious arts centre on Victoria Island, brought together an envoy, Dr. Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosumu; critic, Prof. Biodun Jeifo; journalists Ben Tomoloju,Jahman Anikulapo, Michael Awoyinfa, Dimgba, Toyin Akinosho and Kunle Ajibade, poet, Odia Ofeimun and hundreds of other arts enthusiasts.

—Nkrumah Bankong-Obi