OUTSIDER

Between the oyster-beach and the greens…
Sea and barren coast.
Between tresses of dark silver and reels of danger…
lonesome bird of the wilds!
I spat on the world from between my gums,
Shouted at the moon from between my lungs,
Hooted at the chirrupy mermaid of the dusk…
clever lad of goddam tribe!
Then came the winds, flushing hearts,
The rains came, drenching all their mirth,
Came thunder scattering all irrelevance..
happy child of the new testament!
There were tears, then, when I was born,
There were aches, too, when I was born
Tears to drop, and hearts to ache,
No brains to pry, no minds to try
Where, when I was born.
So take, take me away!
Send, send me away!
Let the gold I loved which never was
Delude its glory-minded prodigy.
Send, O send me away!

AUTHOR: Michael Joseph Chukwudalu Echeruo, born in Umunumo Town of Ehime-Mbano LGA in Imo State of Nigeria, West Africa, on Sunday
14 March 1937.


SOURCE: https://naijaphilia.com/blog/2024/07/10/naija-poetry-87-outsider/

Michael Echeruo is a Nigerian academic, professor and literary critic.

He was educated at the University College, Ibadan (now the University of Ibadan) from 1955 to 1960 and was contemporaries with a few notable writers and poets from the college, such as Christopher Okigbo. He earned his Master’s and PhD degrees from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York in 1963 and 1965 respectively. There he was a member of the Telluride House.

He is currently William Safire Professor of Modern Letters in the English Department of Syracuse University, New York, USA. He also serves as a member of the Modern Language Association of America (MLA) Committee of the New variourum Shakespeare.

He is best known in poetry for his collection of poems, Mortality (1968); in cultural history for his pioneering study of Victorian Lagos and in lexicography for his Dictionary of the Igbo Language (Yale 1998).



SOURCE: https://naijaphilia.com/blog/2024/07/10/naija-poetry-87-outsider/