THE POET WHO RE-WROTE THE BIBLE TO SUIT THE AFRICAN NARRATIVE: GLADYS CASELY-HAYFORD

 

Who was Gladys Casely-Hayford?

1.      She was born on the 11^th of May 1904

2.      She was born in the Gold Coast where is presently known as Ghana

3.      She is credited as the first author to write in Krio language

4.      She sometimes wrote under the name ‘Aquah Laluah’

5.      She could sing, dance and write poetry at an early age

6.      She did her tertiary education in Europe

7.      After her tertiary education, she traveled for a while with a Berlin Jazz band as a dancer

8.      On her return to Africa, she became a teacher at the Girls’ Vocational School Freetown, Sierra Leone

9.      She taught African folklore and Literature

10.  She celebrated her blackness with unique poems

11.  Not much of her poetry was published when she was alive

12.  Her poems fiercely promoted Africa and the African

 

“Rejoice”

Rejoice and shout with laughter
Throw all your burdens down,
If God has been so gracious
As to make you black or brown.

For you are a great nation,
A people of great birth.
For where would spring the flowers
if God took away the earth?

Rejoice and shout with laughter
Throw all your burdens down
Yours is a glorious heritage.
If you are black, or brown.

This poem celebrates being African. She celebrates the skin colour of Africans which is seen as ugly or below the standard of beauty by Westerners. At the time of this poem, blackness was almost a criminal offence as black people were oppressed, suppressed and repressed. Hayford celebrated the black skin colour as being the best skin colour. She compares the skin colour of the African to the earth. This poem places blacks at the pedestal of being the mother of all living things. She stresses that without the blacks, the earth will not flourish.

In celebrating being black here, she rewrites the biblical narrative that placed the Israelites as the beloved of God. She emphasizes that just as the Bible praised the Israelites as being chosen by God, Africans are also chosen specially as a beloved race.

 

“Freetown”

Freetown, when God made thee, he made the soil alone

Then threw the rich remainder in the sea

Small inlets cradled He, in Jet black stone

Small bays of transcient blue He lulled to sleep

Within jet rocks, filled from the Atlantic deep.

Then God let loose wee harbingers of sing.

He scattered palms profusely over the ground

Then grew tall grasses, who in happy mirth

Reached up to kiss each palm tree that they found.

‘This is my gem! God whispered; ‘this shall be

To me a jewel in blue turquoise set’

Thus spake the mouth of life’s Eternity;

There God couched, lion-like, each mighty hill.’

Silent, they keep their watch over Freetown still

Silent-

 

Freetown celebrates the city Freetown in Sierra Leone. She places Freetown as the biblical land “flowing with milk and honey.” She describes Freetown as the land chosen by God just as God had chosen Jerusalem in the Bible as His own city.

 

“Nativity”

This poem is perhaps the poem that deeply rewrites the biblical narrative. It re-narrates the birth of Jesus as the birth of an African child.

Within a native hut, ere stirred the dawn

Unto the pure One was an infant born,

These two lines remind us of Jesus being born in a manger. The poet rewrites this as an African born in a hut. Mary the mother of Jesus is regarded as the virgin but this poem places her as the African mother whom she refers to as the ‘pure One’.

Laid on his father’s home-tanned deerskin hide,

The Babe still slept by all things glorified

These lines remind us that as the bible describes the birth of Christ in a manger being born amidst the straw and hay for the animals, the African baby is born on a home-tanned deer skin owned by his father. The Child Jesus is seen as glorious, so is this child born to his African parents.

Spirits of black bards burst their bonds and sang

‘peace upon earth’ until the heavens rang.

All the black babies who from earth had fled

Peeped through the clouds – then gathered round His head,

Telling of things a baby needs to do,

When first he opes his eyes on wonder new;

Telling Him that sleep was sweetest rest,

All comfort cams from His black mother’s breast

These lines are the rewriting of the biblical account of angels coming down from heaven and rejoicing. The Child Jesus is visited by angels and the heavens sang and there was rejoicing as angels came down to earth and celebrated. Here, the bards (traditional poets and singers who compose poems and songs to honour and praise a person) rejoiced till the heavens rang instead of angels as the bible stated. The souls of black babies also visit the child instead of shepherds.

Their gift was love, caught from the springing sod,

While tears and laughter were the gifts of God.

Then all the Wise Men of the past stood forth,

Filling the air, East, West, and South and North,

And told Him of the joy that wisdom brings

To mortals in their earthly wanderings.

These lines tell of gifts and the visit of Wise men. The bible records gifts of myrrh, gold and frankincense but to this African child, Hayford writes of gifts of love, tears and laughter. The bible tells of wise men from the east who visit Jesus at His birth, but Hayford rewrites this story and presents wise men from the four corners of the earth who fill the air just like the angels did fill the sky in the bible.

The remaining lines in the poem continue to praise the birth of this child while portraying the deep sense of communal spirit in the African society, making great the African wisdom and giving a peep into the birth of a child in Africa.

The non-Africans might call these poems blasphemy but what stops us from debunking the myths that demean and are derogatory to the African and his society? Hayford celebrates the African sensibilities and experiences. She places the African at the center of all things great. Her poems herald the rebirth of the glory of Africa and the African. Black is indeed beauty and all things African are indeed worthy of adoration.

What can you say about these poems by this great poet? 

LITERARY ICON: ISIDORE OKPEWHO DIES AT AGE 74!

AFRICA'S FOREMOST AFRICAN ORAL LITERARY ICON DIES AT AGE 74!!!

      Prof. Okpewho who was a prolific novelist and an African Oral Literature researcher has passed on peacefully on the 4th of September, 2016 at a hospital in Binghamton, New York in the United States of America.

FEW FACTS ABOUT ISIDORE OKPEWHO

1. He was born on 9th of November, 2016.
2. He is from Abraka in Delta State in Nigeria.
3. He was born in Agbor, Delta State in Nigeria.
4. He attended St. Patrick's College, Asaba.
5. He had a Ph.D in Comparative Literature from the University of Denver.
6. He has been living in Binghamton, a town in New York, United States since 1991.
7. He has taught in the University of New York at Buffalo (1974-1976), University of Ibadan (1976-1990), Havard University (1990-1991).
8. He is a first rate scholar and pioneer of Oral Literature in Africa.
9. He won the 1976 African Arts Prize for Literature and 1993 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book Africa.
10. He died on 4th September, 2016.
11. He is survived by his wife Obiageli, his children - Ediru, Ugo, Afigo and Onome.

     Farewell Beloved Icon of Africa!!!

LITERARY PERSONALITY: RICHARD WRIGHT

HEY! WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT RICHARD WRIGHT?

1. His full name is Richard Nathaniel Wright
2. He was born on 14th September, 1908

3. He died on 28th November, 1960
4. He was an African American author
5. He wrote mostly on Racism and Class discrimination
6. His place of birth is Natchez Mississippi
7. His most popular work is a collection of short stories titled Uncle Tom's Children
8. His novel Black Boy is an Autobiography. It tells about Richard's life from 1912-1936
9. He wrote and published his first story at age 15, "The Voodoo of Hell's Half Acre."
10. He was a communist
11. The FBI had him under surveillance from 1943
12. Wright move to France in 1946
13. In 1953, Wright traveled to the Gold Coast (now Ghana)
14. He contracted amoebic dysentery during the time he spent in the Gold Coast in 1957 and became very ill on June 26, 1959
15. He was interested in cultural studies, he wrote a book on the Indonesian cultures during his brief stay in Indonesia
16. He revolted against America and so much hated America. Even when he had financial problems, he refused to join in the programs done on the Canadian radio because he suspected American control
17. Wright's very last public appearance as a healthy man was on the 8th of November, 1960 in a polemical lecture, "The Situation of the Black Artist and Intellectual in the United States."
18. He died at age 52 in Paris of a heart attack
19. His daughter Julia Wright continues to claim that Richard (her father) was murdered
20. He wrote over 4000 poems in the last days of his life
21. His first wife is Dhimah Rose Meidman and the marriage lasted a year. He married Ellen Poplar in 1941
22. He had two daughters - Rachel (1949) and Julia (1942)
23. His wife Ellen died at age 92 in 2004
24. His best selling work remains Black Boy
25. His works have won many awards.

LITERARY PERSONALITY: BINYAVANGA WAINAINA

THE WRITER: BINYAVANGA WAINAINA

1. His full name is Kenneth Binyavanga Wainaina
2. He was born on 18th January, 1971
3. He is a Kenyan
4. His place of birth is Nakuru in Rift Valley Province, Kenya
5. He is a famous author, and do you know that he is also a journalist? He is the founding editor-in-chief of "Kwani?"
6. He won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2002 for his short story "Discovering Home"
7. He studied Commerce in the University of Transkei, South Africa
8. His work that shot him to fame is his memoir titled One Day I Will Write About This Place (published 2011)
9. His essay "How to Write About Africa " attracted the world's attention in 2005
10. He is another great cook- He is an expert on both ancient traditional and modern African dishes.
11. He is currently recovering from a stroke which affected his speech
12. He is known for his outrageous hairstyles

13. On 1st June, 2016, a racist taxi driver in Berlin attacked him before a cheering crowd
and yes...
14. He is a proud homosexual

LITERARY PERSONALITY: FEMI OSOFISAN

FABULOUS FACTS ABOUT FEMI OSOFISAN 

1. His full name is BABAFEMI ADEYEMI OSOFISAN
2. His birthday is on June 16th
3. His father is Ebenezer Olatokunbo Osofisan
4. His mother is Phebean Olufunke Osofisan
5. His father was a lay reader, church organist and a school teacher
6. His father died three months after his birth
7. His mother is a retired teacher
8. He was born in Ogun state
9. He turned 70 in 2016
10. He is the first African to win the Thalia prize
11. He retired as a professor from University of Ibadan, Nigeria in 2011
12. His pen name is Okinba Launko  

LITERARY PERSONALITY - WOLE SOYINKA

AWESOME FACTS YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT WOLE SOYINKA 

Wole Soyinka

1. His full name is AKINWANDE OLUWOLE BABATUNDE SOYINKA
2. He is the first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature
3. He is a cousin of  late Fela Kuti
4. His father was a Priest in the Anglican Church and a Principal of a school
5. His mother was an activist within the Women's Liberation Movement
6. He has six children
7. He dedicated his Nobel Prize Award to South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela
8. As a child, Soyinka was a chorister in the church and regularly attended church services
9. He became an atheist later in life
10. His mentor is Wilson Knight
11. In 1971, his book The Man Died was banned by a Nigerian court


12. In November 1994 Wole Soyinka fled from Nigeria to USA
13. In 1997, he was charged with treason by General Sani Abacha's government
14. Wole Soyinka has been married thrice and divorced twice - his first marriage was to a British writer Late Barbara Dixon, his second marriage was to a Librarian Olaide Idowu and his third marriage is to Folake Doherty
15. He has lost a child - her name was Iyetade
16. He and six other students founded the National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity) in 1952 at University of Ibadan - they are called "the magnificent seven"

National Association of Seadogs

17. He is suffering from prostrate cancer
18. He has written about 102 books
                    and...
19. He is a great cook *smiles*