Sunset Sonata – poem by Professor Atukwei Okai

In honour of the legacy left behind by my hero, mentor, father and role model; Professor Atukwei Okai, I am happy to share with you one of his poems published in his early days.

This poem among others have inspired me as it introduces amateur writers into the ink fraternity with simple choice of diction, yet well crafted work filled with rthythm, metaphors, alliterations, rhyme, personifications, etc.

Sunset Sonata, a poem written by Prof as a tribute to Wole Soyinka of Nigeria while Soyinka was in prison during the civil war in Nigeria.

When you take a deep read of this masterpiece, you’ll see that Prof Atukwei uses his opening lines (first four) to lure every reader to stay glued, due to the marvelous use of rhymes which gives a powerful tone. He also reversed those same lines and placed them in the middle and ending of the poem, to give an excellent rhythm. This is one of the reasons he is the best performance poet to me, as he makes you see every fall and rise in tone and mood from his work. And he makes use of where his commas, full stops, colons, etc are placed.

Prof used this poem to praise Soyinka and also gave him hope of his loneliness in cell through it.

I just hope you’ll enjoy it as I’ve enjoyed it for elephant years now.

NB: The poem is a bit lengthy of 58 lines.

In the poem, Prof used numbers to signify his stanzas. But for the sake of making everything clear for budding readers like me, I’ll like to use spaces as stanzas as we often see in contemporary poems.

Sunset Sonata and other two poems of Prof, were collectively published by Longman Group Ltd in 1976 in a collection of African poems which was annotated by K. E. Senanu and T. Vincent. Other renowned African writers whose works were featured in it includes; Dennis Brutus, Kofi Awoonor, Birago Diop, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Wole Soyinka, Kwesi Brew, J.P Clark, etc.

SUNSET SONATA

… let the greying day glow,
… let the evening horns blow,
… let the melting mountains go,
… but let the sundown sow

In your soul
The sky-censored seed
Of a lone
And lonely longing
For the night

That, in me, must breed
Fire-desire

For your fondling,
That I should
Rise and crush the creed

That separates
Your soil from my sapling,
And makes
Us ride upon a horse
Whose foothold

On the land slackening
Echoes the cry
That there is no heed
To the tear
Of a fainting foundling –

… O let the sundown sow,
… let melting mountains go,
… let the evening horns blow,
… let the greying day glow,

… let the evening horns blow,
… let the melting mountains go,
… but let the sundown sow,
In your soul,
The soil-sanctioned, bulwark-bone

That must steel your soul
Against both stick and stone,
And toughen your toe
That, to trip, is prone –
For a hundred hells

Hunt for the human heart
While a billion
Blows bang upon its door,
And unpitying paws
Rounce forth from every part

Till cruel cries
Cake up at its very core:
Still stand stubborn
To stones that strangle the dawn,
Still stand stubborn

To stones that maim the morn,
Still stand stubborn
To stones that assail the sun
Still stand stubborn
To stones that ambush man –

… O let the sundown sow,
… let melting mountains go,
… let the evening horns blow,
… let the greying day glow,

© Reserved, Professor Atukwei Okai.

Kind courtesy, Abdul Hakim Genius – Poet

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