Prof. Femi Ojo-Ade
St. Mary's College, Maryland USA
From The Guardian Literary Series, July 3, 2000
Excerpt from "A Poet Facing Life, Death and Posterity"
Written on A Stroke of Hope

Often, perhaps too often, we forget that certain people - professionals, professors, poets - are mere mortals, like the rest of us, doomed to fall victim to that implacable grandmaster of destruction, Death. However, what distinguishes a handful of individuals from the vast majority is, the quality of life, the determination to defy death, to stand up and shout a resounding No! No, to cowardice. No, to connivance. No, to corruption. For, these acts and attitudes of revolt, nay, of revolution, are not posited in isolation; they are symbolic of an overall philosophy encompassing everything that comes together in the complex whole called Life. Life, not everlasting, but short, of a season. Life, potentially innocent, sweet, marked by moral rectitude, and a consciousness of, as well as a commitment to, values that lift humanity to the zenith of achievement and accomplishment. Yet, Life, dragged down to the depths of disease and destruction by locusts and vampires and vultures disguised as humans. And, the real human beings are compelled to choose between the condition of slaves, victims of those doctors of death, and the status of the courageous, revolutionaries fighting for freedom, and prepared to pay the ultimate price so that they, by all means necessary, may become immortals in the annals of posterity. A contradiction in terms, one can hear some cynics sneer through their yellow teeth - a sure sign of cowardice!

Those that are fortunate to read A Stroke of Hope will have a ready answer for such nay sayers. Here is a poet, a mere mortal, doing something strange: He reveals to his audience his innermost thoughts, at that instant when most would prefer to keep their secrets secret; when they would rather guard their privacy jealously and obsessively, in order not to reveal their deficiencies, in order not to tumble down from their heights of hypocrisy and ego-tripping. And, this poet goes farther, by making of his audience, at first, reluctant companions in his journey through existential hell; and then, with his poetic skills of making magic with words and striking the chord of communality well learnt from his African culture, winning over his audience to share in his escape from that hell to the point where, together, they can look death in the eye, with defiance, but not absolutely, not with the demonic demeanor of dictators so common to his ancestral continent. In a word, Tayo Olafioye's poems reveal his thoughts, his fears and despair, in the midst of his season of "stroke without a stroke;" his doubts, as to whether he would survive the onslaught, or succumb; his rising courage, and (almost) conviction, that is, the hope, that he will not die, because he has too much to live for. Family, Friends, Students, and Society, the society that is the human universe but, precisely, that society that begins and ends in his Africa; for Tayo knows full well that he is "always an African at heart." (MY EPITAPH WHENEVER)

A particularly striking aspect of the collection is the preamble to the poetry, where the poet presents the biography of his illness, and the reviews of the three doctor-surgeons engaged in his care. As already affirmed, one's first reaction might be, that this is strange, too strange to behold. Nonetheless, without this introduction, one cannot fully comprehend the poems. The introductory details set the stage, as it were, or, indeed, provide the surface existential panorama, for the drama that unfolds in the poems. Those descriptions of the patient's condition - fears, hopes, hopelessness, faith and, especially, love at the edge of the abyss - allow us to empathize with the patient-poet, to share in his story, and conclude, as he does, that "whoever has not died does not know the joy of living."

The body of poems is divided into four parts, each identified with a hospital room, and a major theme. The first is, "Room 211 - On Illness." The poems here are the most intimate and excruciating of all, being the most central to the patient's condition, and the most personal to him and his psyche. His reactions to the surgeons' opinions and actions. His contemplation of pain in all its ramifications, and the professionalism of his doctors. Most importantly, the journey from Life, to the gates of Death, and back. "I am not in a hurry to die, far from it. I feel the spiritual universe is watching over me," the poet confirms to a sibling totally scared and opposed to surgery. That determination to live is aided and, indeed, encouraged and pushed to the fore by the surgeons, "super gods," and "wizards":

Without them
Where shall we be?

As he does in quite a number of poems in the collection, Tayo uses the format of dichotomy and contrast to examine and explore the constant struggle to survive. While surgeons symbolize survival, the earthen soil represents the force of control and destruction:

Never sick
But devours daily, in sumptuous gulps.
(SURGEONS)

Metaphor is also a constant. Cancer is "the stealth bomber of the physique," to whom the poet pays homage, reluctantly and ironically. "To know [prostate cancer] is to smell death." In the poem, THE MECHANICS OF PHYSIQUE, Tayo describes himself as

the guest of ill health
in the home of repairs.

The "home" could be one of healing, but also one of the horror of death. Hence, while praising the surgeons, the poet does not eschew the presence of the murderous Enemy, Death. LET ME TROT AGAIN finds him at the crossroads between Life and Death, ready to go under the knife, the same instrument used in carving up a chicken and in cutting out cancer from the human body. Thus, one is struck by the inextricable link between life and death.

Then, Hope begins to loom large.

I hope to listen
To the sounds of paradise
If I make it there.

Would that mean that the patient is prepared to quit this vale of tears, and soar to life everlasting in the great beyond? One finds references to religion spread through the pages of this collection. Happily that those are passing moments, surpassed by others that declare hope in life, this life, here and now. Such hope is expressed in the poem, AT THE MOMENT OF DEPARTURE, dedicated to the poet's daughter, and in the poems written for his three surgeons. THE POETRY OF DEATH admits the finality of life, but without resigning himself to that fate.

In the surgeon poems, there are metaphors galore, expressing and emphasizing the strengths of those individuals fighting death to the finish.

You are the tiger who strides stealthily
Not of cowardice
But of knowledge of the landscape.

Such usage of animals - a reference point for Tayo's Africanity - abounds in the text. Tigers, elephants, lions, as well as myths and legends, and deities, come up as a reminder of the wisdom of a culture much maligned by the western masters. PRAYER is proof of the viability of African culture, and religion. Just as "genius knows no color or race," so does religion refuse to categorize any cult as superior to others.

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