Wole Soyinka in solitude, as J.P Clark dies

In March 21, 2013 when Prof. Chinua Achebe passed on, J.P Clark and Wole Soyinka wrote: “Of the “pioneer quartet” of contemporary Nigerian literature, two voices have been silenced – one, of the poet Christopher Okigbo, and now, the novelist Chinua Achebe.

A quartet is made up of four. If Professors J.P Clark and Wole Soyinka had recognized Achebe and Okigbo as two of the “pioneer quartet”, it is only obvious who the other two are – Soyinka and J.P Clark.  Now, only Soyinka remains!

J.P Clark was born in Kiagbodo town, Delta State of Nigeria. Online resouce portal, Wikipedia noted that his father was Ijaw while his mother was Urhobo.  His education commenced at the Native Authority School, Okrika in Burutu Local Government Area before he proceeded to the prestigious Government College in Ughelli. He later went to the University of Ibadan from where he bagged a Bachelors of Arts degree in English in 1960.

His literary career began at the University of Ibadan where he edited a number of campus magazines including The Beacon and The Horn.

After he left Ibadan, Clark worked as an information officer in the Ministry of Information, old Western Region of Nigeria; as features editor of  Daily Express, and later as a research fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan.

For several years he worked as a professor of English at the University of Lagos where he co-edited the Black Orpheus magazine until he retired from the university in 1980.

Selected Works

Among his poetic works are “Mbari” (1961) made up of a group of 40 lyrics that treat heterogeneous themes; “A Reed in the Tide” (Longmans, 1965), occasional poems that focus on the Clark’s indigenous African background and his travel experience in America and other places and “Casualties: Poems 1966–68” (USA: Africana Publishing Corporation, 1970), which illustrate the horrendous events of the Nigeria-Biafra war.

His other works are “A Decade of Tongues (Longmans, Drumbeat series, 1981), a collection of 74 poems; “State of the Union” (1981), which highlights Clark’s apprehension concerning the sociopolitical events in Nigeria as a developing nation; “Mandela and Other Poems” (1988), which deals with the perennial problem of aging and death.

J.P Clark did quite a number of dramatic works which include, “Song of a Goat” premiered at the Mbari Club in 1961. It is a tragedy cast in the Greek classical mode; a sequel to “Song of a Goat”, “The Masquerade (1964), in which Dibiri’s rage culminates in the death of his suitor Tufa; “The Raft” (1964), in which four men drift helplessly down the Niger aboard a log raft; “Ozidi” (1966), a transcription of a performance of an epic drama of the Ijaw people; and “The Boat” (1981), a prose drama that documents Ngbilebiri history and other works.

Awards, honours

In 1991, he received the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award for literary excellence. On 6 December 2011, to honour him, a celebration was held at Lagos Motor Boat Club, Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, for the publication of “J. P. Clark: A Voyage, the definitive biography of the main animating force of African poetry” written by playwright Femi Osofisan. The launch was attended by literary giants including Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka. In 2015 the Society of Young Nigerian Writers under the leadership of Wole Adedoyin founded the JP Clark Literary Society aimed at promoting and reading his works.

the most controversial of all his works was “Casualties: Poems 1966–68” (USA: Africana Publishing Corporation, 1970), his 28 war poems collected in 1970. Casualties which addressed the Nigerian civil war from various angles.

In the “Casualties” J.P Clark writes: “The casualties are many, and a good number well/Outside the scene of ravage and wreck;/They are the emissaries of rift,/So smug in smoke-room they haunt abroad,/They are wandering minstrels who, beating on/The drum of human heart, draw the world/Into a dance with rites it does not know

The “Casualties” and another controversial work, “America, their America” must have drawn the ire of Western powers who felt that J.P Clark was criticizing them. Clark, however, with equanimity, maintained he had only portrayed events as he experienced them