SOURCE: "Poet as Martyr: West Africa's Christopher Okigbo, and His Labyrinths: With Path of Thunder," in Studies in Black Literature, Vol. 7, No. 1, Winter, 1976, pp. 10-14.

[In the following excerpt, Stanton describes how events in Okigbo's life seem to have informed his poetry and influenced his poetic style.]

Okigbo claims the following:

I don't think that I have ever set out to communicate a meaning. It is enough that I try to communicate experience which I consider significant. [African Writers Talking, 1972]

This rejection of giving "meaning" to his poetry denies us the use of logical analysis to interpret his work. He is known to be influenced by the French Symbolists, especially by Mallarme who also wrote poetry without regard to logical meaning. Symbolic poetry is a poetry which strives to create a mood. Such poetry is a presentation of a particular state of mind.

Another possible influence upon the direction of Okigbo's work is the work of abstract artists. This was first pointed out by Ali A. Mazrui. Abstract art had reached its height during the time within which Okigbo wrote poetry. Abstract art also is not meant to be "meaningful." It appeals to the emotions and deep inner experiences of mankind. If an abstract painting is "seen" correctly it will evoke an emotional reaction which is triggered by an authentic "experience" of the painting. Okigbo once read his poetry to school children who cried in agony upon hearing it. He believed that this reaction is a correct response to his poetry.

In December, 1958 he learned that he could not be anything other than a poet,… "when I found myself wanting to know myself better, and I had to turn around and look at myself from inside." Chinua Achebe points out that this statement must be taken lightly, since, for example, Okigbo eventually became active as an army officer. But, then again, he may have become an army officer when he could no longer exist as a poet. (This point will be supported when we come to look at his "Elegy for Alto.")

He saw himself having many selves within, including the whole of the society of which he is a part:

I believe that any writer who attempts a type of inward exploration will in fact be exploring his own society indirectly … I believe that a writer who sets out to discover himself, by so doing will also discover his society.

He states that his writing of inward exploration is more difficult than "committed" African writing as expressed in the "negritude" writers for example. He did not see any African writer, other than himself, doing any sort of inward exploration, but he hoped for its beginning in others.

Okigbo's Introduction to his [Labyrinths, With Path of Thunder] takes on many of the concerns that we see in the poetry of T. S. Eliot. In both poets there is a reaching out towards spiritual fulfillment. Both poets must find this fulfillment by rising above the wasteland that surrounds their respective places in history. Both poets attempt to purify themselves before and during their respective quests which takes them through the rot of modern culture. Both poets reach stages wherein movement ceases to be. (In Okigbo's work this occurs in the "Silences" sequence.) Eliot, in "Ash Wednesday," learns that purification and the will to gain salvation are still not enough to gain such. He learns that he must wait in silence in a world between worlds, a twilight world, a rose garden, the place of solitude wherein he prays for salvation to a woman wearing white light. He awaits the Divine Word which will allow him to enter the spiritual heaven of god. He awaits total destruction of Self. Yet he cannot enter because he cannot rid himself of the memories of sensuous distractions.

Okigbo, on the other hand, makes it. In the final poem of "Distances" he tells us this in highly sensuous metaphors:

      … and in the orangery of immense corridors,
      I wash my feet in your pure head, O maid
 
      … I have entered your bridal chamber; and lo,
 
      I am the sole witness to my homecoming.

He is the sole witness to his homecoming because the attempt towards salvation is strictly a matter between the candidate and his god. One finds one's own way to salvation.

In "The Passage," the first poem of Labyrinths, we see the candidate at the gate of his goddess. He has wasted his time in the world (therefore he is a prodigal) but he claims that he has achieved a state of humiliation ("Under your power wait I"). He has stripped himself of past illusions ("Before you, mother Idoto, / naked I stand"). He awaits the word to enter ("watchman for the watchword at Heavensgate"). He is barefoot before the goddess because he considers himself pure, humble, and yet vulnerable before her.

The second poem "Dark waters of the beginning" elaborates upon the first. The candidate tells us what it is like at the gate. Dark waters exist because the state of salvation is not known. Weak light from the sun attempts to pierce the gloom of darkness. This weak struggling light is a foreshadowing of "the fire that is dreamed of." The light is a promise of great warmth. There is a rainbow present also. The rainbow "foreshadows the rain that is dreamed of." The promise of fire and water is the sign of future fulfillment. The word "orangery" comes up again. In the last poem of the Labyrinths series we saw that it is "in the orangery" wherein the candidate has finally reached salvation. Here, in this second poem, we see that he, a "wagtail," has been invited to the "orangery" inspired by his state of solitude which is the necessary condition of all poetic creation. He is called forth to be a poet of mourning. He is to tell the complicated "tangled-wood-tale." In this position he will undergo a metamorphosis. He will lose his "wagtail" identity for that of a sunbird.

Beginning with the third poem in Heavensgate, the last of "The Passage" poems, Okigbo begins to turn back to the past in an attempt to show what he has experienced before reaching his present position before the Heavensgate. The word "crossroads" plays an important part in this poem. The candidate is himself at a crossroads. There is the choice between Christianity or the choice of a more natural religion:

        … in cornfields
        among the windplayers,
        listening to the wind leaning over
        its loveliest fragment.

Should he go to the new religion which has already attracted a "festivity in black"? Should he take up the gospel, "the light years held in leather"? This is not answered in the poem. Both choices contain "lovely fragments." Okigbo states that he does not consider himself either a Christian or a pagan, but rather that he holds to a personal religion which "combines elements from both." We note here the polar opposites which attract Okigbo. He is humble before his goddess, yet maintains a self-confidence which allows him to cry out to her to "give ear and hearken." He may be common (thus he calls himself a wagtail), but nevertheless he is urged forth towards a special destiny, i.e., to become a prophetic sunbird. He describes a "festivity in black" (a funeral ceremony?) meeting "behind the bell tower" (in a churchyard?) in "the hot garden" (a cemetery?) "where all roads meet" (at death?). Here he includes himself among others who listen attentively to the music of a church organ. Does he consider Christianity to be rooted in death, and motivated by it too? But next to these "Christian" images he places himself in cornfields where in he listens to the natural music of a wind moving through cornfields. From Christianity, then, Okigbo may have satisfied his unconscious will to die; from paganism, he may have satisfied his unconscious will to live.

"Initiations," the next poem in the sequence, gives us an answer to his early religious dilemma. He has made the choice to join the Christians. He has been baptized "upon waters of genesis" by a shallow sort of person named Kepkanly who left him with the "scar of the crucifix / over the breast." Looking back in retrospect he sees faults in those "committed" to Christianity. We are given four angles in the practices of Christianity. These are difficult to determine because the syntax is ambiguous. Before we come to the first angle, however, we have the "pure line" which appears to be nothing more nor less than a straight line "whose innocence / denies inhibitions." At the first angle "man loses man, loses vision." Does this imply that Christianity is too heaven-oriented? Does Okigbo warn us here that our "angle" should not move in a direction away from the presence of our fellow men? The second angle, a consequence of the first, is "life without sin, without life." The literal meaning of this is that a sinless "life" is death. If this second angle is accepted and taken up then a third angle is reached which also leads to a death (an intellectual one here, in contrast to the spiritual death of a life without sin) because our hypothetical Christian finds himself "avoiding decisions" once sin is totally rejected from his life. Okigbo is surely having fun here, drawing out the logical consequences of a life dedicated to orthodox Christian morality. A fourth angle results from the duty and obligation of "loyal" Christians. This angle produces morons, fanatics, priests, popes, organizing secretaries, party managers, brothers, deacons, liberal politicians, "selfish selfseekers," and finally the followers of these Christian leaders. The Christian leaders who do things in the name of Christ "are good / doing nothing at all." Achebe points out that Okigbo is using geometry to show the different degrees of rigidity in Christian practice. The square shape produces the greatest rigidity; the straight line "denies inhibitions."

The final two poems of "Initiations" present pagan aspects of his initiation which are used to balance off the Christian initiation. But both poems end by stating: "And there are here / the errors of the rendering …" Jadum from Rockland, the speaker in the first of these poems, is "A half-demented village minstrel." His identification with Rockland is a reminder of the mad Carl Solomon in Ginsberg's Howl. The second of these poems consists of a repartee between the candidate and a village explainer. The entire poem seems to closely imitate the stylistic design of Gregory Corso's dialogue poetry. The gist of these two poems may be that the advice of authorities, which is given in a mad world, cannot help but be in error and appear mad itself.

"Watermaid" is next. The poem expresses the poet's desire for purgation. The poet-protagonist stands before a goddess "Bright / with the armpit dazzle of a lioness." She is a water goddess as is Idoto, the goddess at Heavensgate. Perhaps they are the same? She appears to him only momentarily. He wishes to express his "secrets" to her. But she will not accept him with "mirrors around me." He is rejected, it seems, for his lack of maturity. He is too self-centered. The mirrors around him reflect only himself.

"Lustra" is a successful attempt at cleansing. He climbs to a hilltop to offer sacrifice to the gods. The act of giving frees him from himself and makes purgation possible. Okigbo tells us that the "new laid egg" and the "white hen" are both the poem itself. "My Heavensgate is in fact a huge sacrifice" [Journal of Commonwealth Literature, No. 9, 1970]. The offer of his poetry is his way of fulfilling his role as the priest of Idoto. This cleansing in "Lustra" brings some new satisfaction to the candidate as indicated by the refrain "the spirit is in ascent." It is reiterated here that in this poem the candidate first finds that sacrifice is the necessary act for purgation which is in turn necessary for salvation. It is understandable, then, that the candidate will offer up his life as the greatest of sacrifices. Indeed, he "dies" at the end of Labyrinths (in the "Distances" sequence) in order to be reborn as the poet of his people. He celebrates this in "Elegy for Slit-drum," a late poem in Path of Thunder:

      the mythmaker accompanies us (the Egret had come and gone)
      Okigbo accompanies us the oracle enkindles us
      the Hornbill is there again (the Hornbill has had a bath)
      Okigbo accompanies us the rattles enlighten us—

But when his warnings to his people fail to fully move them towards necessary action against their exploiters the poet then moves towards the destruction of his poetic self (this he does in the last poem of Path of Thunder). Okigbo may have been motivated, in turn, to sacrifice his own life (and therefore placed himself in the front line of battle) when he discovered within himself that he had somehow failed in his public role as poet of his people.

"Newcomer" recalls another Christian initiation. He has been an exile from the church. And he still cannot give himself fully over to it. He asks his mother Anna to protect him "from them fucking angels." His exiled state is emphasized in his identification with Moses waking "behind the bulrushes." "The cock's third siren" suggests the eventual betrayal of Christ. Nevertheless, a newcomer comes to birth "in the chill breath of the day's waking." The last section of "Newcomer" finds him in a high spiritual state "above the noontide" wherein time itself seems to have been transcended: "Under my feet float the waters / Tide blows them under …"

The "Siren Limits" sequence (i.e., Limits I-IV) deals with the rise of the candidate from wagtail to sunbird identity. But the new sunbird poet finds himself still too weak to deal with the problems of his culture.

In Limits I the poet reaffirms the cleansing process he has recently passed through: "Queen of the damp half light, / I have had my cleansing …" He makes a sacrifice of "the he-goat-on-heat." He also hangs up his egg-shells as a sacrifice. Throughout the poem the tone is one of confidence.

In Limits II the candidate describes his difference from other men. He has greater need of "roots" and "sap," for his goal is to gain full sunlight, the source of life and knowledge. He becomes the sunbird in this poem made up entirely of metaphors. His "selves" unite into one soul and the voice of this soul is prophetic.

In Limits III the young sunbird poet looks out onto chaos and negligence: "Banks of reed. / Mountains of broken bottles." The refrain "and the mortar is not yet dry …" suggests that the poet is not yet strong enough to deal with this situation. Quietly, like Adam and Eve's departure from Eden, the poet (selves-soul-voice) becomes an exile: "So we must go, eve-mist on shoulders." The "brand burning out at hand-end" suggests a state of spiritual impotency. In such a condition the poet sings "tongue-tied. / Without name or audience." The voice attempts to be reborn in an intense dream which is dissipated into "Hurry on down" unfulfilling situations. At the end of these dissipations the refrain is repeated twice consecutively; and we are told that the dream has been "like a shadow, / Not leaving a mark." The poetic process has been attempted but is yet too weak to be effective in a prophetic capacity.

In Limits IV we see the poet confronted by the image of a goddess. Her image is first suggested as one of great beauty which "distracts / With the cruelty of the rose." But this image is replaced by its polar opposite, a terrifying "sea-weed / Face, blinded like strong-room." He asks to be wounded by this last image. He may be in need of full knowledge of the goddess which, like himself, has more than one self. The image of the goddess grants him the ability to create energy for his upcoming quest which he sees will bring harm to himself. The last two lines—"Wake me near the altar, / and this poem will be finished …"—suggest that the fulfillment of the poetic achievement involves an unconscious active pursuit of the truth. Only in truth is he worthy to ask for salvation from Idoto.

The "Fragments out of the Deluge" sequence (i.e., Limits V-XII) deals with an almost total destruction of the poet's culture.

In Limits V-VII the poet speaks of a death and the failure of rebirth. He identifies with Christ who is denied and betrayed by followers who lack a thirst for the "seed [the Divine Word?] wrapped in wonders [prophesy?]" Limits VI presents us with this denial of Christ; Limits VII presents us with the rebirth of Christ among the spiritually decadent: "And to the cross in the void came pilgrims; / Came, floating with burnt-out tapers." The pilgrims are without thirst, i.e., without inspiration. They perform a ritual without true mourning.

In Limits VIII the poet as sunbird speaks prophesy to his people just as Christ spoke to his people. The "fleet of eagles" are the planes of the colonial imperialists. They will come to the sacred place "over the oilbean shadows" and enslave the people with their ideology "under curse of their breath." The colonialists will come in planes and bring fear to the native people:

              The eagles ride low,
              Resplendent … resplendent;
              And small birds sing in shadows.
              Wobbling under their bones

Limits IX is another poem of prophesy. "A blind dog howls at his godmother." But the innocent (represented by Eunice singing in the passageway) are not disturbed. The poet-prophet is not heard: "Give him no chair, they say."

In Limits X destruction comes upon the fearful, innocent people. The colonialists kill the sunbird, and the twin-gods of the forest, the tortoise and the python. Okigbo states: "The whole town … worships the python [the male penis] and the tortoise [the female clitoris] … They … are sacred to the whole town … we cannot kill them … And Christianity cannot wipe this out." The colonialists are described in their sweeping acts of destruction. They destroy tree totems and the gods of the underworld. After this destruction they occupy the land and exploit the wealth they find at the houses of the gods. The prophesy is fulfilled.

In Limits XI we find the gods without voice, and the people unable to mourn them.

In Limits XII we see the sunbird in the act of being reborn. He sings from the soul "where the [physical] caress does not reach." The destruction, then, has not been complete. However, the sunbird has lost its power to speak clearly: "The slits of his tongue / cling to glue …" The sunbird is like Eliot's Philomel, changed into a nightingale which can only sing Jug Jug to dirty ears. Direct reference is made to Picasso's Guernica which we all know is a powerful painting which depicts the agony of war.

The "Lament of the Silent Sisters" sequence is given to us in highly ambiguous terms which are sung by a Crier and a Chorus. The songs lament the destruction. Music more than image is important in this sequence. It is the expression of a deep sadness in the mind.

In "Silent Sisters I" the crier and chorus search for a way to say "No [to death?] in thunder."

In "Silent Sisters II" there is a lament for the destruction caused by war, and there is a search for a rebirth from it.

"Silent Sisters III" describes the chorus in an act of silent agony lifting up such to the night heavens. The crier calls this "our swan song," i.e., a song of death.

In "Silent Sisters IV" beliefs of possible hope (e.g., "I see many colours in the salt teeth of foam"; "The rainbow they say is full of harmonies") appear in six lines. But ten other lines express fear of loss (e.g., "Wild winds cry out against us"; "The salt water gathers them inward"; "Will the water gather us in her sibylline chamber?"), making fear stronger than hope in this struggle of polar opposites.

In "Silent Sisters V" the chorus and crier see that their music contains visions of both good and evil. Hawthorne's influence comes into sight here just as it did in the opening poem of this sequence when it was asked how to say NO in thunder (Melville states that Hawthorne is able to do so). They accept Hawthorne's view of the world. They recognize that one must equally accept both the good and evil in this world if there is ever to be inner growth. Accepting this, there is a growth of silent songs of light:

        One dips one's tongue in the ocean;
        Camps with the choir of inconstant
        Dolphins, by shallow sand banks
        Sprinkled with memories;
        Extends one's branches of coral,
        The branches extends in the senses'
        Silence; this silence distils
        in yellow melodies.

So, we see that the sunbird has been made dumb, silent like the mourning sisters. Through the visual and auditory senses a rebirth may come about. The spirit, but not the voice is alive. The music exists without words.

The "Lament of the Drums" sequence describes the wasteland which confronts the poet and his people. Drums are used here because they approximate the human voice. But neither they nor the human voice of the poet is yet able to speak effectively of the agony in the soul of the people. Later, however, in Path of Thunder, Okigbo will speak directly to his people, and his voice will be so clear that he shall be faced with immediate danger:

       If I don't learn to shut my mouth I'll soon go to hell,
       I, Okigbo, town-crier, together with my iron bell.

"Drums I" is the invocation of the people to the forest and to the antelopes within it to produce drums which will be used to speak for them in their agony.

"Drums II" shows the drums coming alive, "but how shall we go? / The robbers will strip us of our tendons!" There is no hope for rebirth in "a Babylonian capture" which is forced upon them in the name of Christ: "the martyrdom / Blended into that chaliced vintage."

"Drums III" tells of the attempt of Palinurus to keep the soul alive by song in a time of destruction and profanation. It is an invocation by him who has overcome despair, who now receives "tears of grace, not of sorrow." The voice of the drums, however, is like a "stifled sneeze." Since no voice is able to be generated a call goes out for laughter so that at least the shame of the vulnerable, silent people might be covered in disguise.

"Drums IV" and "Drums V" clearly show that the drums cannot speak. They are, we are told, exiled, disjointed, raped, bleeding, and empty. Their voice is null, cacophonous, and void. The spirit of the Great River (the people's source of life) still begs for a voice, but the fear of the colonialist powers (described as 'pot-bellied' despoilers) denies such a voice, and denies the spiritual rebirth of a people as a consequence.

In the "Distances" sequences the poet arrives at his salvation.

In "Distances I" he enters "the white chamber" of death, going "from flesh into phantom on the horizontal stone [his bier]."

In "Distances II" he describes his own physical death and describes the place of Death wherein we see Her (i.e., Death) quietly watching ("in a cloud of incense, / paring her fingernails …") the riotous confusion of Her victims. When She moves "She bathed her knees in the blood of attendants; / her smock in entrails of ministrants …"

"Distances III," "Distances IV," and "Distances V" describe the candidate's journey to hell (in III), at the gate of hell (in IV; recall that he is at the gate of heaven in the very beginning of Labyrinths, so we understand that he is now at its polar opposite), and his existence in hell (in V). There is a absolutely no logical sense in these three poems. The lines rightly give us the impression of madness and chaos. The form of these three "hell" poems reflects a sort of endless anarchy. There is no real beginning to any of them, nor does there exist a true ending. There is no period punctuation to be found within these poems until we get to a false one near the very end of "Distances V." Nothing is ever developed to or from any one point. "Distances III" consists of phrases connected together mainly by prepositions; "Distances IV" depends on conjunctions and prepositions to lead us "to the catatonic ping-pong" (another Ginsberg allusion) wherever that may be; "Distances V," the poem which is meant to give us an experience of hell itself, is a poem which destroys all possibility of comprehension in each and every one of its twenty-one lines. Here is its first "stanza":

       Sweat over hoof in ascending gestures—
       each step is the step of the mule in the abyss—
       the archway the oval the panel oblong
       to that sanctuary at the earth's molten bowel
       for the music woven into the funerary rose
       the water in the tunnel its effervescent laughter
       the open laugher of the grape or vine
       the question in the inkwell the answer on the monocle
       the unanswerable question in the tabernacle's silence—

In "Distances VI," the last poem in Labyrinths, the poet arrives "home" to his solitary salvation as a poet. He has discovered the voice necessary for the rebirth of his people who stand on an "anti-hill." He has made an inner exploration of his and therefore his society's own living hell, and in this journey he has found the living words (to be spoken in Path of Thunder) of an "incarnate voice."

Labyrinths, then, is concerned with the development of a national poet's VOICE. Okigbo is telling us how he has gone through various stages of his inner growth which is formed by a series of deaths and rebirths. The language he is using is one that tells of an inner landscape which is why his poetry may seem difficult to read at first. He seems to also make use of cubism in that he is showing us his inner selves (e.g., as sunbird, crier and chorus, drums) from different perspectives at different points in his development. Only by reading Labyrinths at least twice does the full instantaneous perspective become comprehensible. Eventually, each poem unites in our mind with all the other poems in Labyrinths to form a total picture of Okigbo's "incarnate" voice which is so because he has united all polar opposites in his sacrifice to and for his people.

In "Thunder Can Break," the first poem in Path of Thunder, a celebration of victory occurs. The war with the colonialists has resulted in a victory for and in a unification of the people of Nigeria:

       Fanfare of drums, wooden bells; iron chapter;
       And our dividing airs are gathered home.

But the poem concludes with a warning from the poet to himself that he must keep himself "down to earth," must keep from over-celebrating the victory lest he lose his prophetic vision:

       Thunder can break—Earth bind me fast—
       Obduracy, the disease of elephants.

"Elegy of the Wind" is written in the same poetic style that we find in the early Labyrinths poems. This poem celebrates the "incarnate" voice of prophecy and the acts of purification which give birth to it.

"Come Thunder" is a warning to the people of Nigeria that danger to their freedom exists, even as they celebrate their freedom from colonial rule:

        And the secret thing in its heaving
        Threatens with iron mask
        The last lighted torch of the century …

"Hurrah for Thunder" speaks out, in metaphorical terms, against the pettiness and political shallowness of Nigeria's leaders who apparently are exploiting their political positions to gain personal wealth.

"Elegy for Slit-drum" shows the people in their preparation for civil war.

"Elegy for Alto," the final poem in Path of Thunder, ends in a tone of despair:

       The glimpse of a dream lies smouldering in a cave,
       together with the mortally wounded birds.
       Earth, unbind me; let me be the prodigal; let this be
       the ram's ultimate prayer to the tether …
 
       An old star, departs, leaves us here on the shore
       Gazing heavenward for a new star approaching;
       The new star appears, foreshadows its going
       Before a going and coming that goes on forever …

The poet has suffered through the destruction of his peoples' land and culture and has lost the incarnate voice. He has a vision of cyclical movement which will destroy all evil, but will destroy all good as well. The only thing we may be sure of, he seems to say, is the continual struggle between opposing forces. This is why the poet asks for a release from the pain of living ("Earth unbind me") and from all hope for salvation: "let me be the prodigal." These two requests are in direct contradiction to his earlier requests when his spirit was in the ascent. His present place in time is controlled by "robbers" and politicians who are on the warpath to destroy in their selfish desires to dominate all others. Okigbo therefore chooses to no longer be "just" a poet. A careful reading of this last poem will show that Okigbo has totally abandoned his early subtle poetic style. The poem is almost one long howl of agony written in obvious condemnation of the exploiters. But it is now rhetoric rather than poetry.