Senator Ihenyen: the true voice of Africa

In few days, We have been seeing new forms to look the problems by the channel which are showed by the literature; and We continue think that, even the words always won't go to help or solution the problems, may be an international form to unite the knowledge, the throughts, the world. We present today a one voice who claim about any problems of modern Africa's with the one of the best methods of do it: the literature. The blog LITERATURA DEL MAÑANA presents: Senator Ihenyen.

The show form will be by six poems specially choosed by the author who are completely in english language and these were selected from her first volume of poems titled, Colourless Rainbow: Poetry of My Childhood, forthcoming from Coast2Coast, Lagos this 2009. The collection is divided into seven movements (The Mirror, Cameleons, Camoufladge, Images on the Breaking Walls of My Heart, The Masquerades, Crossroads and The Tide), each representing the seven colours of the rainbow in an ascending order.

Is an honor to present these poems in this site so the readers can read and appreciate about reality as closely as far as Africa is today, from a symbolic point of view, in a simple language, informally, without even leaving aside the metaphorical nature of literature, but with a mysterious and real field represents the present man's historical roots, the African continent:

Memories

I
cry
in the
rain

memories of you
rise in the rainbow

painting smiles
in the sun…

________________________________

Umbrella in the Rain

…when tears roll
down my heavy eyes
like torrents of rain from a cloudy sky,

with colours of love
you open up your heart to me
like an umbrella
unfolding in the rain

like rainwater that wets
the earth, and flows back to the sky
only to fall again

________________________________

Crossroads

Although now colourless,
Must we open our doors
To let the West come in
To take away our sun?

Although now colourless,
Must we open our doors
To let the East come in
To take away our rain?

Should we not close our doors
And with our sun and rain
make rainbows

And open our doors
For the world to buy our colours?

________________________________

Searching

I search
for rainbow in the sky,
but there is no sunlight
piercing through the
ranting raindrops

and I begin to wonder
where to find its colours –
colours of my heart, colours of my dreams,
my hope.

In the emptiness,
I begin to understand
that if I could not look into the eyes
of the living around me
to see that the rainbow
gleams there too

I may never find the colours
to paint a better place
for you and me

________________________________

When We Cannot Tell

When tongues
cannot tell butterflies
by their wings

When tongues
cannot tell mosquitoes
by their buzz

…how can we know
the light of the sun
from the shadows of the night?

________________________________

Night of Deception

Those hands painting the sun with the colour of night
Those hands turning butterflies into fireflies
Those hands turning the dew of dawn into tears of night
Turning singing larks into screeching crickets

They cannot repaint our blood
nor turn our heads upside down,
They will only die
in the artificial night of their own affliction.
Those hands that demand to stay beyond the night
Promising cockcrows in the dawn that has since risen
They will only die the death of their own
night of deception.

If truly it is night
why does the moon hang still in the sky
like thickened blood after a massacre?

________________________________

Of the Author:

Senator Ihenyen was born in Lagos in the 80s, but hails from Esan-West L.G.A., Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria. He writes poetry, short fiction and engages in literary research. Recognised by a U.K-based organization, Outspoken, in 2006 as ‘one of the significant voices in Africa pushing the boundaries of contemporary African Literature,’ he is a member of a number of Internet-based literary circles, such as the African Writer, Krazitivity, among others. The late and respected Nigerian editor and critic, Okey Okpa, had described the young writer as his ‘future Poet Laureate’ in 2008.
While some of his poetry have been published in local dailies such as the Daily Times, New Age and Business Times, his early works have also been featured in international anthologies published by the U.K.-based Anchor Books, Poetry Stop, Canada, and the U.S.-based Voices Network, where his poetry has been given special international recognition. His poetry has over the years been widely introduced to readers, especially on the Internet. He is the author of the widely-read article published on African Writer site in 2005 title, The Younger Generation of Nigerian Poetry – Which Way?
Currently in a full-time Law Degree programme at the University of Benin, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria, he has been serving as the Campus President of Golden Minds Centre, a youth-focused organisation. The author, who has completed Colourless Rainbow: Poetry of My Childhood, a volume of poems forthcoming from the Lagos-based Coast2Coast Publishing, is currently working on his second volume of poems centred on HIV/AIDS. He has an inveterate interest in Literature, especially creative writing.

For a further information, you can visit the site of the author at:

http://www.senatorihenyen.wordpress.com/

Copyright:

Article:

©Angel Brichs Papiol

Sources about the biography, images and poems:

©Senator Ihenyen


Published in this blog site under previous consent of the author:

http://www.literaturadart.blogspot.com