APPRECIATION
I really thank Olodumare this year.
2019, the year I had my leg accident, also the year of my great recovery.
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I really thank Olodumare this year.
2019, the year I had my leg accident, also the year of my great recovery.
It was in 1980, in Nigeria, when this police encounter occurred.
I will start by swearing
in the name of Ogun
that this event, strange
as it sounds, actually happened
in the middle of the night.
They say when you want an African to tell the truth, make the African swear to an indigenous divinity—not to the Bible or the Quran. Those two books are just books. The real book that they believe and consider real is not written. It is oral, and tied to the indigenous divinities.
CAMPUS TALES
She said, “I’m certain I’m not a C grade material,” she complained to me. “During my School certificate exam, I scored A grades in most of my courses, and was admitted to the university. Once there, I attended all the lectures, studied really hard and was always ready for the exams. But then, whenever I got my scripts back, I always scored a C grade. I became curious and confused because my friends who did not study, partied throughout the semester and paid no attention to classes, always scored A and B+ grades.”
I studied with the Ìyàmi,
the Power Mothers who
suspend the global ball
on a single frail string,
yet it cannot snap.
After they gave me the name Ọ̀rìságbèmí Arígbábuwó, I transcend the boundaries of gender, race, time, and geography.
Here is the story of that transcendental embodiment, in its most concise form.
I gave my paper titled, “Can’t Kant Count: Ifa Divines for African Art History,” at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, over the weekend.
Many people gave me warm responses.
Here I was, doodling on my coffee cup while listening to another talk at the conference.
Artist: Moyo Okediji
Title: The Not-I Bird (After Wole Soyinka’s Poem in DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN)
Wole Soyinka: The Not-I Bird
“Not-I became the answering-name
Of the restless bird, that little one
Whom Death found nesting in the leaves
When whisper of his coming ran
Before him on the wind. Not-I
Has long abandoned home.
Another of the paintings I just discovered in my garage.This painting, however, has the distinction of being one the oldest canvases I have in my possession—painted in 1992. It was the painting in which I had a breakthrough. It was in this painting that I unlearned everything my teachers taught me.I realize that in life, we do not see things like a camera.