Aggrieved Compatriot: Gilbert Ebinyo Ogbowei’s “marsh boy”. ~By Ifesinachi Johnpaul Nwadike.

Writers, especially poets, having been adjudged chroniclers who speak the minds of their people are always on course to create handy awarenesses through their poetic reflections. The proclivity of the poet documenting the events in his immediate environment and beyond issues from the natural perception of the poet as a tribune, hence the message isn’t his but that of his community.

Gilbert Ebinyo Ogbowei is one of such poet-tribunes whose artistic engagement resonates with the sensibilities and yearnings of his people- the Niger Delta. His poem ” marsh boy”, the titular poem of the collection: “marsh boy and other poems” is the concluding part of a trilogy that includes “the heedless ballot box” and “song of a dying river”.

“marsh boy”, like other Ogbowei’s poems before it, has helped to put to rest the necessitating factors of the militant agitations and armed resistance in the region.

The uniqueness of Ogbowei’s articulation lies in the fact that he seem not to be merely content with lamentations but extends the boundary of his engagement by saluting and celebrating the heroism of those who recognize the quality of freedom that emanates from the barrel of the gun. This heroism is typified by the “marsh boy”, a dispossessed youth made radical by the raucous experience of the creek.

“marsh boy” is a freedom fighter, an aggrieved compatriot and a rebellious intellectual in quest of “liberty equality not bread”. He is not a hungry revolutionary who could be bought with the “poisoned fruits of freedom”. The cover portrait of the collection portrays a “humble hungry hunter/ pushed out of the dinning hall/ by buccaneering brothers”. As a result he becomes the “spear/ driven into the soul of the stalker” the bomb “exploding the peace of the pillager”, the “marsh boy/ quick and handy with a gun”.

Stylistically, “marsh boy” as well as other works by Ogbowei is layered with what Kontein Trinya refers to as the “characteristic omission of punctuation marks”. In all Ogbowei’s works, there are no capitals, no commas, no full stops except the imperative possessive or hyphen, a style aptly put to great use by the American poet, E.E Cummings.

Lyricism and alliterations is another great quality of “marsh boy” e.g,”humble hungry hunter”, “cauterize clean the cancer”, “protesting peasants mourning menchu”, etc.
In his preface to the collection, Ogbowei posits that:

“Marsh boy and other poems goes beyond revealing the injustices meted out to the people of the Niger Delta or calling for those responsible for the gross violations of human rights to be brought book, to drawing attention to the humanity of these victims of state-sponsored terrorism and explaining why the marsh boy, an educated cosmopolitan revolutionary denied living room and forced to retreat deeper and deeper into his scarred swamps…” (8).

With diction like flames from the mouth of an enraged dragon, “marsh boy” is milatant poetry per excellence.

Works Cited

Ogbowei, Ebinyo Gilbert. marsh boy and other poems. Ibadan: Kraftgriots, 2013.

Trinya, Kontein. “Poet-prophet: Introduction to Gilbert Ebinyo Ogbowei’s the heedless ballot box”. (Kraftgriots 2006): 8-10.

Ifesinachi Johnpaul Nwadike is a poet, playwright and essayist. He lives in Owerri.