POET and academic, Professor Niyi Osundare, has paid tribute to the foremost literary scholar, Professor Abiola Irele, who passed on July 2.
Irele, who had a sterling academic career in the West before returning home to Nigeria in 2010 as Provost of the Humanities at the then newly founded Kwara State University, Malete, Ilorin, was 81.
In his tribute entitled Farewell to the Scholar Without Borders, Professor Osundare recalled the late academic’s contributions to his writing career and his serendipitous dedication of his new book of poems, If Only the Road Could Talk, just released in the United States by Africa World Press, to him.
Osundare, who described Irele as a “great scholar and generous enabler,” said apart from following his curious instinct to dedicate the collection of poems to Irele, he also did something absolutely out of his character and habit by “leaking” the dedication to Professor Irele.
The poet’s tribute reads in part: “I am sad Professor Irele didn’t see my new book before he passed away, but glad that he read my dedication and had a measure of the high regard in which I hold him, and the gratitude I owe him as a writer, scholar, and aburo. For, Irele’s New Horn Press was my first publisher. Unknown to many people, the very title of my first book of poems came from him. I had completed this collection of verses, christened it I Sing of Change, after one of the major poems within its cover, and started wondering which major publisher would be foolhardy enough to stake his investment on a timid, yet unknown novice, when the Irele ‘Angel’ walked in literally through the door. ‘Niyi, I understand you have a new poetry manuscript; can I take a look at it? I’ve been reading your poems in West Africa, (the then highly influential London-based newsmagazine) and I like them.’
“With much trepidation I handed him a bound copy of a collection called I Sing of Change, and he promised to get back to me in ‘about a week’. But the very next day, Professor Irele left a hand-written message on my office door, telling me the poems were ‘terrific’ and asking if I would let New Horn publish them. Of course, my answer was a resounding affirmative. Two days later, he announced with palpable enthusiasm, ‘I have a new title for your collection: Songs of the Marketplace. I think that sounds more intriguing, and it captures the essence of the entire collection’. That was it. That name stuck, and the moniker, Poet of the Marketplace was born – with Irele as Francis the Baptist. Thus, Irele was not only there at the beginning of my literary-creative journey; he was vitally instrumental in giving my fledgling dream a name, and shaping the trajectory of a life career. “Any wonder then that If Only the Road, which arrived with my 70th year on earth, and over three decades since the initial Irele Magic, kept on insisting that it would not be complete without that dedication to the Spirit of the Beginning who gave voice and verve to the ‘hawker’s ditty’ in the marketplace of songs? No doubt the God of Gratitude has wondrous ways of communing with the Spirit of Serendipity. . . .
“Irele’s New Horn initiative predated my Marketplace experience. First on the New Horn Poets list was Harry Garuba, whose Shadows and Dreams (1982) struck the literary public with its poignant precocity and intensely engaging rendering. Following four years later was Conflicts, debut poetry collection by Mabel Segun, who had already made a name as one of Nigeria’s finest short story writers; and much, later, Poems of the Sea by Jean Baptiste Tati Loutard, one of Africa’s most eloquent poets. Irele had an overriding passion: to discover, nurture, and promote a new crop of writers after the phenomenal achievements of the Achebe-Soyinka-Clark-Okigbo generation. The ‘New’ in his ‘Horn’ was both a statement and a promise; a literary journey and cultural investment, with a staunch hope in the future of African writing.
“There goes Abiola Irele, the doer and enabler. Admirably cosmopolitan and inspiringly literate, Irele was a man and scholar constantly re-inventing himself and his ideas, an ageless humanist with an astounding combination of youthful energy and the seasoned wisdom that comes with age. We will sorely miss his fertile, encyclopedic mind, his stupendous zest for life, his powerfully resonant voice, his infectious passion for music, wine, and enlightened company.”
and then