A performance poet needs to practice. So, sometimes, I escape to a quiet room in the house and start talking to myself. But, invariably, after a few minutes, the door creaks open and they stick their heads round it. ‘Daddy, are you doing your poetry?’ I nod, because I can’t stop in the middle of a recitation or, well, I would have to start all over again. ‘Can we listen?’ I nod again, and frown viciously too, so they know to shut up and stop disturbing me.
That day I was doing my tribute to Chinua Achebe. ‘Nna anyi’ I thundered. ‘Is it true that the calabash broke and I will no longer drink from it?’ They’ve heard it many, many times. But, still, they sit obediently and listen, while I leap around the room, stomping and shouting. Afterwards, I’m breathing a bit heavily. ‘Did you like it?’ My eldest eyes me, then slowly picks up her rubber duck. ‘Nna anyi’ she says laughing, ‘Is it true that I threw this rubber duckie at your head?’
That is what you call, a bad review.
A running commentary is when my number two cannot keep her mouth shut. ‘The Heartbeat of the Sparrow’ is a very solemn piece. So I take a deep breath and say, ‘If He can hear the heartbeat of a sparrow…’ and she chirps in, ‘Eh? What is sparrow?’ I ignore her; ‘… a droplet of water clinging on to the edge of a leaf, the shifting heart of the earth, the march of mountains, the movement of shadows, the scratching sound of a lizard scurrying across the sands.’ She tugs at my shorts, ‘Is it like the lizards in our house?’ I eye her. ‘If He can hear the tears sliding down my face, the hopes and fears rattling in my chest, the thoughts tiptoeing in my head, the rise and fall of every idea…’ She’s tugging at my shorts again, almost pulling them down, ‘Daddy, what is it? Why are you shouting?’
It’s what I tell them all the time. ‘What is it? Why are you people shouting? Please, keep your voices down.’ But they are not yet at the age where they can fully comprehend how someone would propose a rule with the intention that it apply only to others. So, the day she heard me say, ‘If a white man turns and calls me ‘nigger’…’, she echoed it happily, ‘Nigger! Nigger! Nigger!’ I stopped in horror, ‘No! No! You can’t say that!’ And she did her sad face, chin tucked in, shoulders lowered, eyes gazing downwards, ‘Why? Is it because only you can say it?’
Ah! How do I explain to this two-year old that I didn’t actually say it, that I said IF a white man said it to me, and that the poem is really a critique of the hypocrisy of those who condemn racism but practice tribalism? She’s still looking at me in complete devastation. So, I smile and say, ‘Who wants ice-cream?’ (I know; I’m a bad parent. But some things are just too difficult to explain.)
That was why I almost conked the elder one when I walked by, one day, and saw her standing over her sister, who was sprawled on the floor. And when I asked what game they were playing, she said, ‘Njide is dead.’ I think they learned the word from those weeks when Mandela’s face was constantly on our TV. She’s four. So, there’s no way she could have understood why my heart stopped, or why my face turned dark, or why I threatened them with congested-nose-clearing smacks, or why I knelt down afterwards, gathered the two of them in my arms and held them close for a long, long time before snapping, ‘Oya, go and play another game’.
I tell you, my brother, it’s hard to choose a best moment. But I have not known fear like I know it now; sometimes, I wake up in the night and go over just to make sure they are still breathing. Still, there are those evenings when we sit at the dining table and they say, one after the other, ‘Daddy, listen to me, let me do my poetry.’ And, at first, they are shy and twiddling fingers, but soon rattling out my own words with that confidence only children can have: ‘If you see a broken heart, mend it, mend it, it’s a start. Make the world a better place, with a sweet smile on your face.’ And, sometimes, they like to add: ‘Like this!’ Before showing me their biggest, widest smiles.
Honestly, cute or no cute, I don’t hesitate in smacking a deserving bottom once or twice. (Okay - three, may be four times.) But, ultimately, it is to the simplicity of good words that I commit my children. That these things whispered in their ears over and over again will not be forgotten on the day - we long gone and they long grown - they have to choose between what is right and what is only slightly wrong. It is an important day, that one, for on it I too will find out, award winning or not, if I had actually been any good as a Poet.
For World Poetry Day
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