Kai kai Lady
1
Kai kai lady
Bico, have mercy on
your liver
The flavour of juniper berries
Conceals the spirit’s venom
Mocks you
Washes you dry
That Sapele water
That heads for the liver
2
Your claustrophobic secret
Herniates out in at parties
Explains your photophobia
Kai kai lady beware
They all know why you smile
For behind you they whisper
‘Her joys are propelled
by Push me-push you’
3
The babe you suckled
Lies comatose, succumbed to milk and Kai kai
Oblivious to mosquitoes that
gyrate in it’s small ears.
The ill informed suck your blood
but it goes straight to their Anophelese brains
Unbalanced in flight
As Ogogoro takes over
4
Apketeshi lady
Share thoughts for your liver
and Betty Ford acquaintances
all hung out to dry.
The brew is illicit
Your tremors explicit
This treachery could set them back
A year or two.
Dr Wilson Orhiunu
My Time
2005
Excerpts from Cynthia Ikoro Oroh's Thesis
Final Year Project
August 2014
Writing
in English, the language of the imperialist conquerors of Nigeria, Achebe’s
stated goal was to create‘new’ and more African English. He integrated Igbo
words and phrases, proverbs, folktales and other elements of communal story
telling into the narrative in order to record and preserve African oral
traditions and to subvert the colonialist language and culture. It is against
these backdrops of the language arguments that Wilson Orhiunu’s My
Time, a collection of poems in the new and more African English and Pidgin
English, was written. My Time is a
collection of 101 poems with some written in English, some in pidgin and others
in a blend of both.
3.12 “KAI KAI LADY”
Poem Summary/ Subject Matter
The
subject matter of the poem is the unknown effect to the victim of taking spirit
(kaikai). The poet persona is aware of the effect of alcohol on the human liver
and tells the lady the effect it has on her in a bid to make her stop. He tells
her that the flavor of the drink is deceiving her from grasping the effect
alcohol has on her liver.
Aside
the effect it has on her liver, he makes her see the effect it has on her
personality, her suckling child, down to the mosquito that sucks her “kaikai”
ridden blood.
Stanza and Verse
The
poem consists of four stanzas and each stanza has 8 lines, altogether, the poem
has 32 lines. Each stanza is a blend of English and Pidgin English, and
represents a unit of thought.
Rhythm and Metre
The
poem is not rhythmic and the use of metrical feet pattern is completely absent,
because the combination of stressed and unstressed syllable is completely
absent. The poet has no intention of creating rhythm with his choice of words,
instead, he is more concerned with making the lady know the effect of “kaikai”
on her system.
Rhyme Scheme
The
poem has no well-defined rhyme scheme, since the poet’s intention is to make
the lady realize the negative effect spirit has on her liver, herself as a
whole, and her baby, and at that, he is not overly concerned with creating a
rhyme scheme. The only places where 2 rhymed lines followed each other, is
simply done to make emphasis. In the first and last stanza of the poem, there
are two rhymed lines each:
Lines
7 and 8 – “water” and “liver”
Lines
28 and 30 – “illicit” and “explicit”
In
the first stanza, “water” means “kaikai”, so placing the rhyme on the “water”
and the “liver” places more emphasis on the two words, showing that taking one
leads to the damage of the other.
In
the last stanza, “illicit” shows taking “kaikai” is not legal, especially for a
breastfeeding mother and “explicit” is when something is made more obvious to
anyone who cares to look. Having tremors (shaking) that are explicit shows that
the result of taking “kaikai” which is illegal is made obvious by the tremors.
Putting the rhyme on these two words shows their affinity and makes the
emphasis effective on the reader.
5.3 CONCLUSION
From the foregoing, it is evident that much work has not been done on
the overall literary appreciation of Wilson Orhiunu’s My Time. Structure and language is an aspect of literature (poetry)
that has been adequately explored in many works but there’s a wide research gap
in terms of some contemporary works especially those written in Pidgin English.
This research has to an extent covered a gap in this field but there’s still so
much work to be done in this area. Aspects on literature like the themes,
socio-historical context, form and content etc. are still unexplored in the
poems of Wilson Orhiunu. The researcher therefore suggests that writers should
pay closer attention to homeland poems that are deep-rooted in the Nigerian
society
