A poet’s love for Obama

Olumide Sowunmi  has fallen so much in love with the United States president, Barack Obama, that he recently released three collections of poems for the world’s most powerful man. One of the collections, Obama’s Bravura, sees Sowunmi celebrating the US president with poetry. One of the poems, Dance, Dance, Dance, details how the US has reached the promise land with the election of Obama as president.

The chorus of the poem, in Yoruba language, however, laments the  fact that one of the greatest black activities in the country, Martin Luther King Jnr, is not around to witness what he has only dreamed of.

Martin Luther da?/ Where is Martin Luther?

A o ri/ We can’t find him

Nibo lo lo, a o ri/ Where did he go, we can’t find him

A o ri , a o ri o, a o ri/ We can’t find him, we can’t find him, we can’t find him.

Sowunmi, in another poem, describes Obama’s emergence as president to the collective effort of all Americans. He says:

This is victory

Is your victory

His victory

Her victory

Their victory

My victory

Our victory

Everyone’s victory

So let no one boast of personal victory

In another poem, America, Hear Me, the author uses the messages of great American leaders to pass a message across to the citizens.

America, your freedom is here, Martin Luther Jnr speaks

America, your value is here, Bill Clinton speaks

America, Segregation is gone, Rosa Parks says

America, all is new for good, dawn of a new era.

This poem focuses on past American leaders and their messages, and how Obama has shattered all the negative stereotypes about the country’s minority people.

In Destined Head, the author likens Obama to Chief Obafemi Awolowo as one tree that made a forest, while saluting the US president saying:

O kare/ Weldone

Omo Afrika rere/ A good child of Africa

O kare, o kare/  Weldone, weldone.

There are several other poems in the collection which the poet uses to eulogise the US president, Barack Obama. Sowunmi’s poetic style is fluid, as he mixes Yoruba wordings in some of poems.

Through the triology, one will definitely notice that the poet is smitten by the Obama bug, meaning that he loves the US president because of the glass ceiling he has shattered for blacks, not just in the United States, but all over the world, to dream big in order to achieve their visions in life.