Behold "King Baabu," bloated and perverse,
A cacodemonic prince of greed and bile;
Who turns the commonwealth into a curse,
With every nefarious and twisted wile.
From "Ubu Roi’s" absurd and fecal source,
Soyinka births a potentate of shame,
Who rides the prostrate nation like a horse,
To set the vestiges of hope aflame.
He mocks the "Bountiful" and hollow chest,
Of militaristic and vainglorious pride,
Putting the stoicism of the oppressed to test,
While the sycophants and janissaries hide.
In this grotesque and satirical display,
The laureate flays the monsters of our day.
Sonnet XIX: The Total Theatre Aesthetic
Not merely dialogue, but kinetic grace,
A synaesthetic feast of drum and dance;
Where ancestral masks and modern masks embrace,
To wake the spectator from a hollow trance.
The "Dionysian" pulse of the forest floor,
Meets the "Apollonian" clarity of thought;
Opening the hermetic and ancient door,
To truths that colonial logic never taught.
With dirge and paean, the ritual is spun,
A holistic and shattering dramatic art,
Where past and present and the gods are one,
Within the labyrinth of the human heart.
He crafts a proscenium of cosmic scale,
Where justice is the only holy grail.
Sonnet XX: The Octogenarian’s Vigil
Though winter frosts the silver of his hair,
The Ogunian fire burns with steady heat;
A recalcitrant and vigilant despair,
That refuses to acknowledge a defeat.
From "Chronicles" of a land of "Happiest Folk,"
He flays the spiritual and moral rot;
Beneath the luxuriant and verbal cloak,
Lies a scathing and "I-accuse" plot.
He remains the conscience of the shifting sand,
A lexical bastion in a storm of lies,
Holding the accountability of the land,
Beneath his percipient and hawk-like eyes.
The titan stands, unbowed by age or time,
A monumental life in prose and rhyme.
Essential Context:
King Baabu: A 2002 play that uses the satirical tradition of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi to critique African military dictatorships, specifically mirroring the regime of Sani Abacha.
Total Theatre: Soyinka's signature style which incorporates music, dance, and mime into a cohesive dramatic experience.
Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth: His 2021 novel, a magnum opus of satire targeting contemporary corruption.
We continue this lexical marathon by focusing on his early poetry in Idanre and Other Poems, or perhaps his autobiographical reflections on his parents in Isara.
Sonnet XXI: The Paternal Ghost (Isara)
A genealogical trek through dust and time,
To Isara, where the "Essay" once held court;
Beneath the staccato and rhythmic chime,
Of ancestral drums in the hinterland fort.
He charts the osmosis of the old and new,
The syncretic blend of the Bible and the staff,
Where Yoruba roots and Western logic grew,
Writing the epitaph and the roaring laugh.
Through epistolary ghosts and faded ink,
He bridges the ontological divide,
Standing at the precipitous and jagged brink,
Where the progenitors and the living hide.
The pedagogue and the visionary meet,
Upon the red-earth and historical street.
Sonnet XXII: The Metallic Muse (Idanre)
Behold the Idanre heights, a jagged crown,
Where Ogun walked in the dawn of primal fear;
Bringing the empyrean thunder down,
To the subterranean and mortal ear.
It is a pilgrimage of the iron-willed,
A metaphysical and steep ascent,
Where the cacophony of the world is stilled,
And the circumferential veil is rent.
He tracks the atavistic and bloody trail,
Of the creative-destructive cosmic god,
Whose profligate energies never fail,
To stir the recalcitrant and sleeping sod.
In the shimmering heat of the mountain air,
The laureate finds his soul’s essential lair.
Sonnet XXIII: The Satirical Anatomy (The Interpreters)
Six interlocutors in a drunken haze,
Navigating the putrescent swamp of state;
Lost in the labyrinthine and modern maze,
Of a republic sealed by a cynical fate.
Sagoe and his "Philosophy of Void,"
Sekoni’s bridge, a shattered and broken dream,
By the kleptocratic hand of man destroyed,
Sinking beneath the viscous and dark stream.
He flays the bourgeoisie and the hollow priest,
With a vituperative and sharp-edged wit,
Inviting the reader to the morbid feast,
Where the social and moral lamps are lit.
A polyphonic cry for the nation’s soul,
Seeking the shards to make the vessel whole.
Contextual Anchors:
Isara: A Voyage around Essay: A biographical tribute to his father, S.A. Soyinka (nicknamed "Essay"), exploring the cultural synthesis of colonial Nigeria.
Idanre and Other Poems: His first major collection, centered on the mythology of Ogun and the interplay between technology and tradition.
The Interpreters: Soyinka’s first novel, a dense, modernist work that uses fragmented narratives to critique post-independence Nigerian society.
Also we proceed to the linguistic pyrotechnics of his essays in Art, Dialogue, and Outrage, or perhaps his poetic lament for the disappeared of the African landscape.
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