Taban lo Liyong as a Poet
Chapter 17
Taban lo Liyong as a Poet
This paper examines Taban lo Liyong’s poetic art against a backdrop of the socio-political milieu in which he writes. Although Taban’s works embody several literary pieces including the short story and the oral literacy corpus, he is primarily a poet. This essay discusses his poetic themes-- especially art, religion, science and technology-- and arrives at the significant conclusion that, despite his unique aesthetic style and his idiosyncrasies, his poetics will continue to appeal to contemporary audiences as well as future generation of readers.
Taban lo Liyong, who hails from Kajokaji in the Kuba tribe of Southern Sudan but spent most of his youth in Uganda Gulu High School University of Nairobi in Kenya , the University of Papua , New Guinea , Juba University in Khartoun in the Sudan , and the University of Venda in South Africa
I
Although he has written works of folklore and short stories (e.g., Fixions and Other Stories, 1969, and Meditations in Limbo, 1970), he is primarily a poet. His poetic collections include: Frantz Fanon’s Uneven Ribs (1971), Another Nigger Dead (1972), and Thirteen Offensives Against Our Enemies (1973).
Taban’s poetic themes focus on “introspection,” art, religion, and science. In commenting on his own poetry, he asserts: “the period of introspection has arrived, personal introspection, communal introspection. Only through introspection can we appraise ourselves more exactly”1.
An example of his poetry which derives from “introspection” is “Ministers to the Toothless,” where Taban bares his mind on his individual and collective obligations and responsibilities:
When I am old and my teeth are gone or rotted
Let me age away near KFC or MacDonald’s hotel:
Potatoes have no fibres and just disintegrate in the mouth
When they are squared and fried hot you don’t need teeth;
Finger-licking good spring chicken eaten hot is swallowed whole
The coleslaw in hamburgers is for additional salivation
It softens the bread and your gums can pound the meat
And you turn everything over in the mouth and swallow:
Nobody knows if you chewed or just washed it down
Especially as the self on the potatoes, and drugs in the Coke
Contribute a lot to salivation and gunning down.
The workers of the East with their poor dental care
The poor of the world who buy silence with sweets and ice-cream
Will keep the MacDonalds and the General in Business
Regardless of ideology, change of regime, whims of the boss:
When I have no teeth apples are out, as are steak and ribs.
Fried chickens, eggs, minced meat, coleslaw and bread
These I can eat with my gums, with my baby2.
In their criticism of Taban’s work, G.D. Killlam and Ruth Rowe in their study The Companion to African Literatures, write as follows:
No single distinctive style or voice dominates Taban’s aesthetics. His work assimilates oral traditions, conscious and unconscious integration of heterogeneous sources, fragmented utterances, and a prosaic diction with little or no regard for a coherent logical sequence3
True, Taban’s work partakes of the prosaic as illustrated in the poem quoted above. It is also lacking in any coherent structural arrangement. And there are no defined poetic elements in the diction which consists of the traditional and the modern or contemporary. Finally, the style is leisurely.
The poem’s theme is clearly illustrative: it centers on the protagonist’s love of the MacDonald hamburger and the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). The “personal introspection” in the poem resides in the joy and pleasure which he derives from the menu which comprises of the ‘chicken,” the “coleslaw,” the “potatoes,” the “salt,” the “eggs,” and the “steak and ribs.”
The poem’s theme proceeds from the “personal introspection” to the “communal introspection” when the poet speaks of the universal benefit of these foods. Apart from promoting good health and individual well being, these foods are consumed world-wide, they know no divisions nor boundaries-- they are consumed both in the Western and the Eastern worlds. For this reason, they bring peoples and the races together: they are a unifying force in the universal scheme of nature.
The individual value of these foods include good health and self-satisfaction, especially when one is doing something that will not task his teeth or wear away his body and mind. The communal value of these foods consists of the gainful employment which they provide, especially through the MacDonald and the Ford companies.
The poem’s title, “Ministers to the Toothless,” is a metaphor symbolizing the various ways in which the aged, whose teeth are decayed or in a state of rot, can gain a sense of renewal and equilibrium by eating the foods which can sustain their spirits and regenerate their soul. Taban’s poem draws its images from the United States of America
Of interest is the fact that the references to such parts of the body like the “teeth,” the “mouth,” the “saliva,” the “gums” bring to our consciousness the remote as well as the familiar. Finally, the references to our various senses -- touch (“fingerlicking”), sight (the “coleslaw in hamburgers is for additional salivation”), smell (“fried chickens, eggs, minced meat, coleslaw and bread/these I can eat with my gums, with my baby” -- all these bring into our world view both the remote and the familiar aspects of the human experience.
II
Taban is a philosophical poet. Because his poetics is not fixated on any particular aesthetic scheme or theme, he is willing to discuss any subject that arouses his sensitivity. In the poem, “Language is a figure of speech,” Taban discusses the theme of nature, using parables and other poetic devices to illuminate his discourse.
Divided into three parts, the first part of the lyric employs the parable of “the right and left” to highlight the paradoxes and complexities of the natural world order:
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IX
Never talk of right and wrong to me
Nor of left and right when I’m near.
We stand on a facet of iceberg
Left is not right
Our heads pierce up
And our feet nail us down
Spectacles can’t make us see
Down below is quite tartarian
What shall we name
What we cannot see or know?4
For Taban, the nature and form of the natural world order -- which is frequently the subject of human inquiry -- is difficult to define or explain. Similarly, the question of what is “right and wrong” defies definition or explanation given the fact that human judgment is generally subjective. Consequently, in our different professions and vocations, human beings are bound to arrive at different conclusions about things or life depending upon their individual understanding of the subject matter.
The metaphor, “right and wrong,” which appears in the first line of the poem, is frequently employed in disputations or social interactions among people in trying to find out about the truth of an argument. Similarly, the metaphor “left and right,” is sometimes employed in political parlance to designate the opposition and the government parties respectively. By employing these metaphors, the poet gives scope and depth to his structural narrative.
In carrying his argument further, Taban goes on to discuss the complex nature of the universe by illustrating with the “heads” and the “feet” -- two component parts of the body with different configurations and functions. The ambiguity illustrated between these two entities is similar to trying to analyze or understand the phenomenon of the complex universe of nature, “What we cannot know or see.”
In the second part of the poem Taban illustrates his argument with the parable of the “hand,” the vagaries and divisions contained in the five fingers which rest squarely on the hand, is clearly not in doubt. Furthermore, each one of these fingers exercises its own sense of claim and judgment. The personalization of the “fingers” is another way through which Taban endows his poetics with ambiguity and polish.
The mystery and complexity of the universe is compounded by the fact that some species which emanate from the same source or similar genus sometimes clash or fight with one another. For example, while “one finger” reacts “out of spite,” the “others” act “out of aggrandizement,” while:
One finger added more breath
Than height and another
Shrunk out of former size
In order to show them
What can be achieved
What a little trying
(SAP, p. 245, lines 22-27)
The didacticism of the above line is as clear as crystal: the universe of nature is eclectic and competitive, and it is full of intrigues, rivalries, and the unknown. Furthermore, it is dynamic, and fundamentally changing in space and time. The expression, “What can be achieved with a little trying,” is employed to demonstrate the fact that hard work has its virtue and its rewards.
In spite of the disunity which tends to tear apart the “five fingers,” there are some elements of unity and cooperation ingrained in them. For example, they “were equally short” and the “competition” between them “No sooner begun/Than ever will end.” The moral lesson which this offers is the fact that nature has a way of bringing people together, of reconciling their differences.
In the last stanza of the poem Taban illustrates his discourse with the parable of the “hunter.”
This hunter was my neighbour
One day he went to wash in the river
While putting his trousers on
He failed to balance steadily
On the right foot
And his left foot muffled by the trouser leg
Stumbled into the muddy water
Realizing that the trousers
Had not drunk water for a long time
And therefore were naturally thirsty
He told me to drink away
To their heart’s content.
With the resolution made
My hunter friend sat down in the muddy water
Whereupon the trousers were mighty glad
And drunk water to saturation
(SAP, p. 246, lines 28-43)
Here the poem’s discourse shifts to the misadventure of the protagonist’s “hunter friend” who, having failed to balance himself properly in the muddy water where he went to wash himself, “Stumbled into the muddy water.” The moral lesson which the metaphor “Stumbled into the muddy water” teaches us is the need to be fully observant, watchful, and be prepared for any exigencies we may find ourselves in life.
Furthermore, we must be willing to seek the help of anyone who can help us to succeed, just as the “hunter friend” seeks the assistance of the protagonist, who readily offers him a helping hand. The “hunter friend” symbolizes “a friend in need.” The protagonist’s behavior here recalls Robert Frost’s protagonist in “Mending Wall,” who realizes the fact that “good fences make good neighbors.” In both Taban’s and Frost’s poems, although the ambiguity which underlie their employment is paradoxical, the spirit of friendship and good neighborliness which is implicit in both lyrics is palpably evident.
The three parables: the parable of the “left and right,” the parable of the “hand,” and the parable of the “hunter friend”-- which Taban employs in this poem-- opens up diverse vistas: they enrich his lyricism with paradox and ambiguity; they enable us to discuss the universe of nature in its variety and complexity; and they furnish us with delight and pleasure, especially in their ironic twists and turns.
Finally, the poem’s title, “Language is a figure of speech,” clearly suggests Taban’s own awareness of his ability to manipulate the resources of language in order to achieve his unique poetic purposes. As O.R. Dathorne notes, Taban is “a kind of poet’s poet, for as he writes he manufactures his own rules, he tells the reader how he creates and about the subjects that interest him”5
III
In discussing the themes of science and religion, Taban also relies on philosophical paradigm to illustrate his argument. He cites examples from Christianity and technology to adumbrate the fact that, since classical times, the advances made by man in these fields of human endeavor have been made possible only through perverse means:
With purity hath nothing been won
christ died through the impure
only with impurity had Japan
the American beast came about through things impure
purity kills creativity in the womb
impurity spreads with health
eve ate the apply for impuritys sake
my heart bless thyself
thou truckest not with things that are pure
impurity fills you up with angels of god
thou art greater than earth and hell
for impurity limiteth the child in the cradle
impurity is boundless like my soul.
(SAP, pp. 243-244, lines 1-14)
In the above lines Taban employs the biblical figures of Eve and Christ to illustrate the fact that great events in human history have occurred only through corrupt and perverse practices. For example, Eve’s tasting of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Aden
Taban further argues that the advances made in science and technology, especially by America and Japan
As part of his distrust of “purity” Taban employs small letters-- in contrast to capital letters, which are traditionally employed-- to characterize important names like Christ and Eve. He also breaks away from the use of the traditional sonnet sequence (that is, for example, neither Petrarchan nor Shakespearean) in preference for the sonnet form that is distinctly his own. Furthermore, he employs no punctuation marks of any kind whatever in his poetic narrative.
Taban deftly alligns himself with anything and everything that is grossly inappropriate. There is no better way and no better place to articulate his idiosyncrasies than in this lyric, whose title “With purity had nothing been won,” directly hints at the poem’s underlying meaning. Furthermore, he assimilates and appropriates images and metaphors from heterogeneous sources, and from known and unknown places. Moreover, there are echoes of other sources and authors including William Blake (e.g., “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” in “The Marriage of Black and White”), Wole Soyinka (“Telephone Conversation” in “Telephone Conversation Number Two”) and the Old English elegies (“The Wife’s Lament” in “The Student’s Lament”). Finally, his work accommodates diverse poetic themes including art, religion, science and technology. Taban is a major poet whose lyricism will continue to intrigue and appeal to readers, especially those who care for the spectacular, the absurb and the bizarre.
Notes
1. See the Internet on Taban lo Liyong, March 20, 2014, p.3
2. Taban lo Liyong, “Ministers to the Toothless” in the Internet, March 20, 2014, pp. 4-5
3. G.D. Killam and Ruth Rowe, The Companion to African Literatures (Oxford and Indianapolis : James Currey and Indiana University
4. K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent, A Selection of African Poetry (Burnt Mill, Harlow, Essex: Longman Group, 1976), p. 245
5. O.R. Dathorne, African Literature in the Twentieth Century (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1975), p. 208
Works Cited
Dathorne, O.R. African Literature in the Twentieth Century. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota
Killam, G.D. and Rowe, Ruth. The Companion to African Literatures. Oxford and Indianapolis : James Currey and Indiana University
Liyong, Taban lo. “Ministers to the Toothless,” Internet, March 20, 2014
Senanu, K.E. and T. Vincent. A Selection of African Poetry. Burnt Mill, Harlow, Essex: Longman Group, 1976.
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