A Review of Pius Oleghe's Sudden Storm

I read Pius Oleghe’s Sudden Storm (click here to read the poem) in my first year in Junior Secondary School. It was in my New Oxford Secondary English Course Book One. It became the first African poem I was exposed to. Our English Teacher – a glamorous lady then – had (because she was strict) directed us to learn the poem by heart if we got home. It was an assignment, so I treated it as such. Thus, at night, in the four-ceiling room of the boys quarter I shared with my elder brother (in JSS3) and my elder sister (in SS3), I memorized the poem entirely from ‘The wind howls, the trees sway’ to the last line: ‘Steadily pours the rain.’  My mother was not there to remind me to read, as she had done many years before when she was teaching me two letter words. She lived far away from where I and my siblings schooled; in our countryside several miles away. So I read that poem, because I feared if I did not memorize it, there would be punishment and embarrassment in class the next day.

And as I predicted, there was embarrassment for defaulters. Our Teacher had come into the class the next day and asked everybody to stand up. One could only sit down on the long bench – shared with a partner of opposite sex – if only the poem was recited correctly. Only three of us sat down – two girls and I – not because the teacher loved us more, but because we surpassed her expectations. I had never been so proud of myself. Well, that was many years ago; over a decade now. Yet, this poem – Sudden Storm – continues to live in my heart, watered by time.

I remember in my second year, while in a friend’s apartment, I forged a tune for the poem and sang it. Perhaps, this has given it strength to live beyond its lifetime in my memory, or maybe it was the simplicity of words which the poet merged to create an everlasting image in my memory. I can see the wind howling in a clean village setting; I can see the trees swaying as the wind rages, bending the Coconut trees, palm trees, pear, orange etc.

Mr Oleghe in this poem also talks about lowlife and poverty and what people who experience such face when the rain is approaching. The poem talks about houses with loosed top sheets, and how they clatter and clang, to herald the rain’s coming.  The open windows close with a bang, because of the mad wind. The sky changes into dark, as if it was night: the thick dark clouds stuff the sky like cotton wool, and shield the sun completely.

Mr Oleghe, in the next stanza, explains how the Rain’s coming affects the housekeeper; how she parks the household wares, be it clothes dried in the level field, buckets, brooms, plates, foodstuffs dried outside, etc. Although she does this with a thousand minor cares, she worries about the where about of her son who is so happy because the rain will soon come.

The streets clear of people who throng it because they do not want to be drenched. The houses are filled: even strangers seek refuge under your roof until the rain comes and goes. The noise gathers because happy children shout. This noise rivals the ranging wind. And all that can move (human beings and Animals) are still. There are heavy clouds; then from above, thunder strikes (which deafens) and then the rain falls at last.

Pius Oleghe was a Nigerian poet (from Owan tribe, in Edo state). He attended University of Ibadan, and together with Wole Soyinka and five others, they founded the Pirate Confraternity while studying at Ibadan. He died in early 2000, and was laid to rest in his home town – Uokha – in Owan East Local Government Area of Edo state, Nigeria. His well-known work is the Sudden Storm