Moses Tsenôngu’s literary interests began with the moonlight tales and folksongs he used to hear as a child from Pa Tako Gbor, Mama Nguvan Tako, Pa Achulu Gbor and Mama Mbayongu Ugber, his maternal grandparents and relations in MbaKough. This interest was boosted by the stories in the English Readers studied during his primary education. His first writing effort was a 1985 14-page short story (unfortunately lost) titled “The Adventures of Michael Smith.” This was written immediately after reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Other significant influences in Secondary School were Kola Onadipe’s The Boy Slave, Cyprain Ekwensi’s An African Night’s Entertainment and, of course, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
But Tsenôngu did not continue with fiction. Poetry arrested him so he concentrated all his creative efforts on the genre. His first poem, “On Seeing Ants Dragging a Grasshopper”, was written in 1987. Early written poetic influences were assorted poets in the first edition of K. E. Senanu and T. Vincent’s A Selection of African Poetry and from Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier’s Modern Poetry from Africa, then John Milton, David Diop, and Niyi Osundare. Robert Frost, C. P. Cavafy, W. B. Yeats, Thomas Hardy, Mazisi Kunene, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Okot p’Bitek and A. E. Housman are among the poets whose works he treasures.
From his first poem in 1987, Tsenôngu has now published numerous poems in various journals and anthologies. He has also published several volumes of his poetry. His first published collection was Soliloquies (2003); it was followed by Before I Kill God and Other Poems (2005), The Drums of MbaKough (2005), Currents of Blood (love poems) (2006), Ruminations and Intimations (2006) and the bilingual Sun the Male Born, Moon the Female! (2006) where each of the forty poems is translated to Tiv language. In the same 2006, he also edited Ivory Lines and Silver Linings, a collection of poems by students of Benue State University, Makurdi.
SAMPLE POEMSBut Tsenôngu did not continue with fiction. Poetry arrested him so he concentrated all his creative efforts on the genre. His first poem, “On Seeing Ants Dragging a Grasshopper”, was written in 1987. Early written poetic influences were assorted poets in the first edition of K. E. Senanu and T. Vincent’s A Selection of African Poetry and from Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier’s Modern Poetry from Africa, then John Milton, David Diop, and Niyi Osundare. Robert Frost, C. P. Cavafy, W. B. Yeats, Thomas Hardy, Mazisi Kunene, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Okot p’Bitek and A. E. Housman are among the poets whose works he treasures.
From his first poem in 1987, Tsenôngu has now published numerous poems in various journals and anthologies. He has also published several volumes of his poetry. His first published collection was Soliloquies (2003); it was followed by Before I Kill God and Other Poems (2005), The Drums of MbaKough (2005), Currents of Blood (love poems) (2006), Ruminations and Intimations (2006) and the bilingual Sun the Male Born, Moon the Female! (2006) where each of the forty poems is translated to Tiv language. In the same 2006, he also edited Ivory Lines and Silver Linings, a collection of poems by students of Benue State University, Makurdi.
Before I Kill God
Moses Terhemba Tsenôngu
(p. 3. Before I Kill God and Other Poems. Makurdi: Aboki, 2005.)
I have fallen greatly, greatly
To unbelievable depths of dust.
Where is that bliss of dawn
When the sheep hadn’t learnt the goat’s ways?
I have descended to the deeps of doom
My person, a clamoring lot of corruption
And lump of a dozen thousand mouths
All lusting for assorted liquors.
I have become a log of wood
In the face of burstful bullies
A preacher of cliché scriptures
When a cheek is unjustly slapped.
O! Compassion that consecrated me at the sun’s birthing
That got me through the storms of mid-morning
Tuck me into the safety of your generosity– save me
Save me before I kill God.
* * *
Stepmother and Daughter
Moses Terhemba Tsenôngu
(p.4. Before I Kill God and Other Poems. Makurdi: Aboki, 2005.)
The small girl has picked the pail again
She is not going to play, she doesn’t play
She is going to fetch water
And quiver her way home
This dawn till sundown.
At noon, she will not only be quivering
For the sand would be live flakes of coal
So she would also be dancing her way home
And fetching and quivering and dancing her way home
And fetching and quivering and dancing her way home.
But at eve, the sun would be gone
Her dancing too would be done
Then she’d resume only the quivering
And fetching and quivering and quivering her way home
And fetching and quivering and quivering her way home.
Only at dusk, would she, again, no longer be only quivering
For the darkness would challenge even fresh eyes
So she would also be groping her way home
And fetching and quivering and groping her way home
And fetching and quivering and groping her way home
Like she’s doing these terribly early hours of twenty-four.
* * *
The Spectacle of the Old Woman
Moses Terhemba Tsenôngu
(p.50. Ruminations and Intimations. Makurdi: Aboki, 2006)
An old woman dragging a shivering old tune
Over a song only she can hear what it is saying.
The tune does not want to come along,
But the old one would not let go nor back out.
Coughing and often losing her breath along,
Yet refusing to give it up as she searches
About her impedimenta in her smoke-hued hut.
What is she looking for? She has probably forgotten,
But she’s bent on finding it, and bent on her tune –
The tune that only she can tell what it is about.
How many other things does only she know?
What worlds those sagged sockets have seen!
And those hollow cheeks! belonging to a head,
An ancient head and storeroom of tribal secrets!
Look at her scarified feet of famished bones doing
An absent-minded dance in tune to the aged solo!
She has staggered but that too has been converted
Into that rhythm her feet are doing with admirable abandon
As bundle after bundle she soulfully feels about for the thing.
The rest of her soul seems wholed on the song,
The song over which she drags nonstop a sick, old tune,
Miserable like the rags on her precious skeleton.
* * *
The Oracle Responds
Moses Terhemba Tsenôngu
(p. 86. Voices from the Benue Valley. Ed. David Ker. Makurdi: Aboki, 2002.)
The situation will change
The circumstance will improve
You will have enough in your tummy
And much more than enough in your store
Your problem will not be what to eat, drink, or wear
Whatever your eyes admire
And whatever your heart desire
You will have ten thousand means to satisfy.
The situation will change
The circumstance will improve
But you will not be happier
Neither will you be saintlier.
Superlative shall your grief grow
Frustration shall in you accommodate itself the more
Your nights shall still be spent pleading in vain for sleep
That at noons shall come weighing down your lids
Only to flee when you make to welcome it.
Your sorrow will double, treble, boil and bubble
As you hunt in vain for a piece of peace.
Then, Eden’s fugitive, if you remember, you shall remember.
* * *
The Realization
Moses Terhemba Tsenôngu
(p. 45. Currents of Blood. Makurdi: Aboki, 2006.)
I shall now turn to my kora1
And fiddle with its strings
And fiddle with its strings
And forget the matters that weigh the heart
And forget the affairs that affect the faith.
I shall, yes, turn to my kora
My pretty kora, my faithful kora
Who abandoned her native Gambia
And followed me to the land of Takuruku2
She followed me to the river they call Benue.
Now that brains have absconded from numerous skulls
That corruption holds court at roots of tongues
And affection is negotiated by what complicated sleights!
I must only turn to my lovely kora, my lovely kora
And allow the world to be what it will always be.
1kora: a stringed musical instrument used especially in Gambia and Senegal.
2Takuruku: The greatest ancestor of the Tiv.
* * *
To Kristina
Moses Terhemba Tsenôngu
(p. 54. Currents of Blood. Makurdi: Aboki, 2005.)
When I finally glide into your globe
Where I’ve been seeking admittance
Since I discovered the mints of treasure stowed there
And the mines of pleasure therein stored;
When I finally land home in you–
R world, please do not kill me with ecstasy;
Just guide me gently to the right places
Like you did when I havened in Hamburg.
* * *
Gboko
(To Rose)
Moses Terhemba Tsenôngu
(p. 20. Soliloquies. Makurdi: Aboki, 2003.)
On Mkar mountain
You were a charming match
Of heights and colors
Your street network especially pleased the eye
And I sipped a smile, my town.
Now wading through you
And experiencing these loaded gutters
And the surplus pits on your paths
And a million heartaches, I think
You and Ibadan are kettle and pot.
* * *
Sins of My Youth
Moses Terhemba Tsenôngu
(p. 45. Soliloquies. Makurdi: Aboki, 2003.)
When mates dashed within and abroad
Plucking wealth like a thief in a shop
Who must beat his time or be beaten,
I used my strength to practise gentility.
When they thought nothing of decorum
And crammed their hearts with usurpery
Fanatics of property and maniacs of Mammon
I monkeyed about meditating on honesty.
Today, my mates (even those in jail)
Retire to gentility and honesty
And God! To survive, I mooch about panting
Panting for a morsel to munch.
* * *
Mbalagh of Erewhon
Moses Terhemba Tsenôngu
(p. 33. Soliloquies. Makurdi: Aboki, 2003.)
I intend a trip to Mbalagh,
There step-kids are not dust bins
And kids generally are kids,
Not adults in strife with life.
It is my desire to go to Mbalagh,
Where friends are friends all round,
And even foes oftentimes forgive;
Where justice rules every ruler’s heart.
Mbalagh is reputed fore every good ethic.
Of all, obvious truths there suffer no sophistry.
Their couples looked before they loved,
So homes maintain peace through storms.
I long to go to Mbalagh,
It is the ferry fare that I lack;
Else I would have started forthwith
To Mbalagh district of Erewhon.
* * *
On Seeing Ants Dragging a Grasshopper
Moses Terhemba Tsenôngu
(p. 45. The Drums of MbaKough. Lagos: Hybun, 2005.)
Little ants, little ants
Where did you borrow
Such sense and strength
To turn elephant so hollow?
Little ants, little ants
Must your whole village come?
Can’t the younger, the stronger
Do the job all the same?
Little ants, little ants
Won’t you answer me a word
But keep to your work
As though deaf and mute?
Little ants, little ants
I should go to my business
My work is waiting undone oh!
I should go to my business.
(1987)
* * *
The Drums of MbaKough
Moses Terhemba Tsenôngu
(p. 86. The Drums of MbaKough. Lagos: Hybun, 2005.)
They flow with noble abandon and supple bubble
Flooding the floor and drowning the drought;
The foothold of doomdom has tumbled in toto.
Hear how scrupulously appropriate
The numerable vernacular tongues blend
The gurgling drums, the rugged drums!
Rumble! thou roll of drum and tongue
And bravo ululations (from overcome bodies)
Sapporing through the gloom of mood-doom.
* * *
Why is Boji Gum?
Moses Terhemba Tsenôngu
(p. 4. Sun the Male Born, Moon the Female! Makurdi: Aboki, 2006.)
Why is Boji Gum
Re-tying her gberuagh loincloth
And hastening to the arena
Like a lioness after the cry
Of her cub in the thicket?
Tor Chiki Nyam and his colleagues
Are rolling abirim instruments over there!
They are constructing songs in linear fashion
And carving abirim dance steps
In a manner Boji can hardly endure.
And the flute of Lyam Jape
Is also whirling the wind in the arena.
The dancers intend to break their backs!
The world is vibrating brother,
It is vibrating with forces that tickle the feet.
And the drummers are exclaiming declamations!
And the dancers are threshing out their hearts.
See how they wriggle kpiridididi like the ankyôôr snail1!
When they die some day, dance would die2!
Iti3! Boji can’t wait!
1The snail is reputed as one of the best dancers by the Tiv. This reputation comes from the snail’s shell, emptied of its meat and shaped for children to play with. The cone-shaped shell is held between the thumb and the middle finger and manipulatively cast on the ground such that it stands on its tip, rapidly rotating and revolving dancingly at the same time. This is where the snail’s dancing reputation has originated.
2This line is an exclamation often uttered by excited Tiv dancers: Yange me kpe ee ishor a kpe ee!
3Iti: means neophyte. The word is used especially by players of Dar game. The better player often taunts his opponent by calling him iti.
* * *
Memories of Step-mother
Moses Terhemba Tsenôngu
(p. 2. Sun the Male Born, Moon the Female! Makurdi: Aboki, 2006.)
A good boy must always remember Bingo,
You seemed to believe.
And since I itched to please you
I guessed your thoughts
And appeared satisfied
For Bingo to always eat first
Before I had my share
If it was a lucky day.
I still think I was a cute kid, mother
For I always tried to read your every thought
And tried to obey whatever it said.
But with all my efforts
Did I for once win the contest?
Nor were you ever tired of reminding me,
Nor have I ever stopped wondering what really it was
That always made Bingo the dog so much better than me.