By Mary Chan
Students, faculty and Calgarians packed MacEwan Hall Wednesday evening to attend a public reading by writer and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. A nearly full house welcomed the Nigerian writer, poet, playwright and critic with a sustained round of applause before he read poetry and answered questions from the audience.
A thin man with a full head of shocking white hair complemented by his equally white beard, Soyinka was warm and gracious. He began the evening by reading a collection of poems linked by a common theme.
“Some of my poems reflected the condition of the outsider in different ways,” he explained to the audience, adding that the theme has occupied much of his creative attention over the span of his career.
Among the outsiders examined during the poetry reading were Hamlet, Nelson Mandela, and the Biblical Joseph (he of the multi-coloured coat). Soyinka’s subjects also included Mohammed Ali during a televised 1985 bout (“enchantment is over/ but the spell remains”), and a bag lady who relishes a lobster lunch in “Business Lunch/the Bag Lady” while the poem’s speaker betrays his own gastronomical deficiencies by ordering a tepid glass of humdrum Chardonnay.
One of the best-received poems described Soyinka’s own status as an outsider, illuminated during a visit to the optometrist. Carefully balancing humour and gravity, the poem utilized the age-old image of the poet as visionary. In this case, however, the poet’s literal vision was completely askew, strongly near-sighted in one eye and far-sighted in the other. According to his optometrist, the eyes manage to “harmonize at magic intervals,” which, according to the poet, “make it sound akin to poetic vision.”
The hour-long reading was followed by a question and answer session that covered topics such as the fatwa pronounced on journalist Isiome Daniel after her controversial comments regarding the Miss World pageant in Nigeria last week. In her opinion piece, Daniel wrote that Mohammed would probably chose a wife from one of the contestants.
“The fatwa has been pronounced on this journalist, who supposedly committed the offence by stating a causal remark that I find innocuous and respectful, because it said that the prophet Mohammed is not devoid of esthetic sensibilities,” Soyinka said.
Several audience members were concerned for Soyinka’s own personal safety, since he himself had been imprisoned from 1967-69 for his political beliefs. Soyinka is due to fly back to Nigeria on Thu., Nov. 28.
“I fully expect that I might receive another gift of a fatwa,” he joked. “There is fatwa-mania, you know.
“I assure you that I’ll do my best, as always, not to fall victim,” he continued. “There is nothing one can do about it. One cannot become enslaved by the bigotry of any religion, otherwise one lives as a slave, a second-class citizen. You cannot accept being an inferior being in your own community.”
A writer whose work is as political as it is artistic, Soyinka was also asked about the power of literature to change the world.
“I think there’s no question at all that writing does have an impact on the world, either for better or for worse,” he replied. “It begins with communities, the influence of and the derivatives even from fiction, the realm of human encounters–heroism, sacrifices and so on–all these affect people, maybe not in an instantly graspable way, but human nature is transformed piecemeal.”
Due his earlier than planned departure to Nigeria on Thu., Nov. 28 to deal with the current violence, Thursday’s panel discussion, The Politically Engaged Writer, will be held at noon instead of 4 p.m. in the Rozsa Centre.