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(C.,.,.,Br,<(7E: ~(,,,'Jje U,;Vers:; Fre~R, /C/R6)J Qober+- F""ro.ser CJ.est ltfr,'w-vi Poe:tr1: A- Cv,/1;o...-r (C.,.,.,br,<(7e: ~(,,,'Jje u,;vers:; fre~r, /C/R6)j King 46 s. A. Gingell, "His River's Complex Course: Reflections on Past, Present and Future in the Poetry of Gabriel Okara," World Literature Written in English, 23 (~(1984): 284-297; h,·, K.L. Goodwin, "Gabriel Okara," in Understanding African Poetry: /\ A Study of Ten Poets (London: Heinemann, 1982); -t1142-153; Solomon Iyasere, "Narrative Techniques in Okara's The Voice," African Literature Today, 12 (1982): 5-21; Bruce King, "The Poetry of Gabriel Okara," Chandrabhaga, 2 (1979): 60-65; Margaret Laurence, Long Drums and Cannons (New York: Frederick Praeger, 1969); Bemth Lindfors, "Gabriel Okara: The Poet as Novelist," Pan-African Journal, 4 (1971): 420-425; ;/.<Je11 ~v~ a.-...J. w~J- d- 1 ''~br,~( Ok1..ret's 2. 2): I 2. I - f 2 ~ #~ I~ Ci,,,.v f '>~ I, (,q ~ 6; pl .J King -- ~ ~ 974); P.N. Njoroge, "Gabriel Okara: The Feeler of the Pulse of Africa's Soul," Busara, 5 (1973): 48-56; Errananuel N. Obiechina, "Art and Artifice in Okara's The Voice," Okike, 1 (September, 1972) : 23-33; Eustace Palmer, An Introduction to the African Novel: A Critical Study of Tw'elve Books ,!?y Chinua Achebe, James Ngugi, Camara I.aye, Elechi Amadi, Ayi Kwei Arrrah, Mongo Beti and Gabriel Okara (London: Heinemann, 1972); Kirsten Holst Petersen, "Heterogeneous Worlds Yoked Violently Together," Kunapipi, 1 (1979): 155-158 Adrian A. Roscoe, Mother is Gold (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971); Reinhard Sander, "A Political Interpretation of Gabriel Okara's The Voice," Omaba, 10 (1974): 4-15; K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent, eds., ~ Selection of African Poetry (Harlow: Longman, 1976); King 48 J. Shiarella, "Gabriel Okara's The Voice: A Study in the Poetic Novel," Black Orpheus, 2 (1971): 45-49; Vincent, Theophilus, ed., The Novel and Reality in Africa and America, (Lagos: U.S. Information Service and University of Lagos, 1974): 11-13, 34-35, (Syrrposium with Okara)~ I Hugh Webb, "Allegory: Okara's The Voice," English in Africa, 5 (1978): 66-73; /foef Wood ,of-+e 1 ~ e de?,~ ,.h .0 11 1 vi wo-z.-M L,,·.f-err.x. fv. 1re Wr ,tte.., ,~ E:zl,>4,) ------- Add to entry on GABRIEL OKARA: REFERENCES: Obi Maduakor, "Gabriel Okara: Poet of the Mystic Inside," World Literature Today. 61 (1987): 41 -45; Ayo Mamudu, "Okara's Poetic Landscape," Commonwealth Essays and Studies, 10, 1 (1987) : 111 -118; Emeka Okeke-Ezigbo, "The 'Sharp and Sided Hail': Hopkins and His Nigerian Imitators and Detractors," in Hopkins among the Poets: Studies in Modern Responses to Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. Richard F. Giles (Hamilton, Ontario: International Hopkins Association, 1985): 114-123; Patrick Scott, "The Older Generation: T.M. Aluko and Gabriel Okara," in European-Language Writing in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed. Albert Gerard (Budapest: Akademiai Kiad6, 1986): II : 689-697; Derek Wright, "Ritual and Reality in the Novels of Wale Soyinka, Gabriel Okara and Kofi Awoonor," Kunapipi. 9, 1 (1987) : 65-74; <---- ~ 45 ,1' 5~"' ft , PtJ e w o;J", " 7L-,._ E -ffeei > o{ f,.._,. /4-..... j 1 f'---:'- j ~t(__~+ 0(1\ -h.uz. /Jrofc,;o"' ;5r {~' ~(c,r,e. ( 6ko.r-(>... 'S ~ Vore.€. ) \\ R;f~, Tou.r"'c,Y JZ Mr,~ ~fuJte!, IL (19~Sj·. 77-g:-r; ----Sunday- A. Anozie, "The Theme of Alienation and Commitment in Okara's 'e Voice(" Bulletin of the Association for African Literature in English, 3 (1965): 54-67; Samuel 0. Asein, "The Significance of Gabriel Okara as Poet," New Literature Review, 11 (Nou~r(1982): 63-74; Albert Olu Ashaolu, "A Voice in the Wilderness: The Predicament of the Social Reformer in Okara's The Voi ce," International Fiction Review, 6 (1979): 111-117; Susan Beckmann, "Gabriel Okara, The Fisherman's Invocat ion," World Literature Written in English, 20 ~i981): 230-235; Donald Burness, "Stylistic Innovations and the Rhythm of African Life in Okara's The Voice," Journal of the New African Lit erature and the Arts, 13/14 (1973): 13-20; John Pepper Clark, The Example of Shakespeare (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970); . F, v e clJ C-a. i r, e. f 13 (rq,q): 13 -UOi Okara Interview Bernth _Lindfors, "Interview with Gabriel Okara,", World Literature Written in English, 12 (1973): 133-141; reprinted in Dem-Say: ed, ,l er!"\ +-t, l-'1vidforS -----------=---------------Interviews with Eight Nigerian Writers1 A(A u stin: African and Afro-American Studies and Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, 1974): 41-47. ,... I -'' ,\ 0 r...r:::1 l t (' ~ ' I: J\ :'--• ) The Fisherman's Invocationl (r.ondon~ Heinerrann ~rican Writers \. /\ '- 1 ;( IL ' \ Ct~, P b/ 'I . C / 'f 7q\ Seri{" 1978; P.,e,I" C.+:J , tJ,7e~«; ,__ ,ope " 'S"o/ •rf-1 J, Short Stories: . C>. ': r \ "The Crooks, " Black OrpheusJ8, l1960J;6-8; "TObi," Flamingo, 4,1( 196~; 29-31, Non-Fiction: <./ "Ogboinba: The Ijaw Creation ~'-'0~Black Orpheus} 2,· J.aa..-(195~; 9-17·) "African Speech . • • English Words," Transition , Jx 1;,- (1963)! • I { 1 - ·-r-.,...1r~ ( Cr I •. - ' 15-16: ~ in African Writers on African Writing, ed. G.D. I '. I' -- ... --- .··::-c. \ Ki 11~) (~~~~~es_~~:?. Unive=.s i t_Y Press , '~ ~anston, ~-.1 J;· uhis., "Poetry and Oral English," Journal of the Nigeran English Studies Association, s11~ay 197?; 41-49. irie~ra (24 Apri1 !921 - [;tiK~. _, .. - ,Mt..t~y,.,_J·:,1~~ ....._ .. -- · - . ----- ... -·' Bfr~ll\llfQumli , . -Yenogoa ·wca1 Government Area, Rivers State, Nigeria, 4 April 1921 / / - ·-· / / Parents: n G.and Martha (Olodiama) Okara Education: Government College, Umuahia, Nigeria, 12}5-.1940, _,,,.. ~-------~-- _,,,./ .. / "' \, ' "- . Yaba Higher Co~legE:, . I.agos, ~941 . ',._ .. -.,,.,,,..- . .- . '\ Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 1959-60 '-.., .·. '.< Marriage: Three times married., · ~'ee t imes divor ced ' Children: Timi Okara-Schiller, Ebi Daniel ,/' Awards: "Best all-around", Nigeria Festival of the Arts, 1953 / Comm:::>nwealth Poetry Prize, 1979 '-.. / . /\,,~<· l M~: Society of Nigerian Artists '\, :_ r . Major Works: Books: ( . n ,1 ~ '4 CI V 1· ., , u t The Voice: ~ndonl Andre Deutsch, 1964; London, Heinemann i . c·,.,_ ~b, ~- 10• v .,, ~, ·· :> ' ;u, '\ l Afr ican Writers Series., 1970; New York: Africana, 1970'• 1_ ,.. .- /\ l} King 44 of Nigerian politics. Afterwards he became a Biafran poet recording the pains of the secession oovement, while beginning to question his religious faith. His style changed from the romantici sm of his first poems to the rroderni st and surrealist tendencies of his Negritude phase. With the Biafran poems his style became more open and his subject matter clearly in view. He has written little since the end of the Nigerian civil war. King 43 The rebel is at a loss for progressive allies as the establishment crushes opposition. Webb sees Okara as having transferred to the novel characteristic features of the African oral tale, such as moralizing parables to form group conscience. Okara's narrative is stripped of all detail not essential to parable, making the characters figures in an allegory. Although alienated, Okolo is a crusader and his search threatens the conservatives' retention of power. Noting similarity of techniques and themes between The Voice and works of the early 1960s by Wole Soyinka, Ashaolu sees the novel as concerned with the corrupting effects of \Jkstern rraterialism on traditional Nigerian society at the time of national independence. Okolo is one of the intellectuals who preach reform. The Voice is "one of the finest African novels of social analysis", according to Iyasere; no other novel has so successfully captured the social injustice, corruption and spiritual emptiness of contemporary Nigeria. Okara appears to have evolved from a late Romantic religious poet to a Negrit udist, then in The Voice to a critic of the rraterialism King 30 NameC1 appear to be written directly as appeals to Roman Catholics abroad for aid to Biafra. At his best in the early poems Okara is a symbolist most effective 'When treating a theme by metaphor; in the war poems imagistic descriptions too often becorne prose statements. In "Cancerous Growth" "Today's wanton massacre/ burns up tender winds/ and from the ashes/ hate is growing." These poems do show Okara's control of rhetorical forms. Goodwin calls "Expendable Name" "a powerful but unbitter reproach to the comfortable warmongers" and finds "Rain Lullaby" "an unsentimental poem" 'which condemns the war fought by day in contrast to the nighttime mercy flights to Biafra. Rejecting the gentle lullabies of love and sleep the poem celebrates the airplanes bringing "milk", "like baby birds waiting/ for feed from mother birds". Many of the war and recent poems use traditional Christian imagery and associations. "Corne, Come and Listen" loosely imitates Christ's Good Friday reproaches on the Cross to those who pass, and is perhaps related to George Herbert's well-known "The Sacrifice". Besides pleading with Nigerians to think of the rnothers and children they are King 31 killing, the speaker in the final stanza appears to ask why the God brought by the Christians has deserted him. In "Christmas 1971" "love and peace" are sacrificial Christ-like figures "caricatured, maligned/ taunted and rejected". In many of the late war poems there is a feeling of betrayal at the borrbings and death of civilians, at the wall created between Nigerians in the Federal Republic and in Biafra, at the unwillingness of the leaders to compromise and seek for peace, and at those who profit from the war. Christian images are used in these disillusioned, often satiric poems, forming a pattern of irony. "The Revolt of the Gods", a long unfinished poem from 1969, begins with a debate between the gods during which we learn that man makes and kills gods by his need, love and hatred.
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