A BANQUET OF WORDS (The poetry of a food) | Ogedengbe Tolu Impact
i
Beloved,
I have prepared you a delicacy of wit
Popularly made from far and wide
By poetry chefs with prided prudence
Whose wondrous words of poetic prowess
Drool dazzling desires of culinary delight.
I have prepared it with nutritious ingredients
Of spiced metaphors and diced similes
Supplely sauced with prawns of puns
Steamed upon the fire of pure poesy.
I’ve also made available a jug of juice
Pressed from the fruits of poe-tree
Plucked from the orchard of fresh figures
Whose fine fragrance stirs sweet sensations
In readers’ mouths with pleasant taste.
ii
So beloved,
Come and let’s dine and wine
Together in this healthy colorful banquet
Where words are chewed with teeth of tenses
And arts are sipped in drips of quills.
Come now and pick your cutlery
As we journey through the sumptuous path
Of witty delicacy flavoured with sweet alliterations
Till our lips are wet with kisses of verses
And our hearts filled with the joy of artistry.
Do you know that words are edible? That you can chew words and savour the flavour of each syllable of a poet’s words? Poeticians have something in common with dieticians. While dieticians know the right combination of food everyone needs, poeticians know the right amount of words you need. They are custodians of words, gardeners who brew words from the tree of poe-tree. When the poet makes you a meal of words, you would learn wisdom if you eat from it. He gets his ingredients from “far and wide” and prepares you a banquet of words.
In “A Banquet of Words”, Ogedengbe Tolulope Impact sets a table before us and calls us to join him in this banquet—a feast of words. He engages the services of renowned word chefs from “far and wide” to prepare this dish. So, it is safe to say that this banquet is an intercontinental dish. With Ogedengbe’s poets, there’s no fear of over-salted meal or too peppery broth, because these chefs pride their culinary fame on prudence amongst other things.
“I have prepared you a delicacy of wit
Popularly made from far and wide
By poetry chefs with prided prudence“
In stanza 2, the poet creates an image of the adventures contained in poetry that can be explored by the reader. He represents it like the ingredients in a pot of food that has been steamed by fire. But this time, by the fire of poesy. Here, puns taste like pawn, the metaphors are tasty spices and similes decorate the meal like carrots, green pepper, peas, sweet corn and vegetables garnish your meal. Stanza 3, lines 14 – 15 shows that the meal appeals both to the nose and the to the tongue. In the mouth, it’s “fragrance stirs sweet sensation and in the mouth it ushers “pleasant taste”. The poet proves to us here that the art of literary appreciation is a pleasurable art.
This poem is unique in that it spells out to us in very unique way what a good poem is all about. Ogedengbe defines poetry to us here, anyone who is aspiring to write good poetry can find a sure guide here. He lists that a poem should be:
– Suaced in puns: prawns of puns/ poe-tree
– Should arouse feelings of sensation:
fine fragrance stirs sweet sensations
In readers’ mouths with pleasant taste.
– Have sweet alliteration: /p/, /w/ and /d/ alliterates in stanza 1, lines 4-6 respectively.
poetry chefs with prided prudence
Whose wondrous words of poetic prowess
Drool dazzling desires of culinary delight.
The poet also mentions that a good poem is:
- spiced with metaphor
- diced with simile
- have figures of speech which are fresh not stale
- colourful
All these are ingredients provided in their right measure in this poem.
In the last two lines:
“Till our lips are wet with kisses of verses
And our hearts filled with the joy of artistry.”
Ogedengbe validates the place of versification in poetry. You cannot but agree with him that a good poem leaves the heart flowing with the “joy of artistry”.
These are the pleasant ingredients that go into the art of poetry which make it the arts we love and cherish. The taste of a good poem never leaves the tongue, its lines continue to reverberate in the reader’s subconsciousness. That is one thing that poetry offers to its guests that prose and drama can hardly afford.
Poetry touches the body, improves the mind, searches the soul. At each rereading of a piece of poem, it gives us a taste like never before. It instills its worth into the very essence of us.
Ogedengbe is a generous chef, in each stanza of the poem, he beckons on us to join him. He calls us “beloved”, asks us to “Come and let’s dine and wine/ Come now and pick your cutlery.” He goes into giving us the convincing details on why this meal is a must eat. Come to this feast of words— a sumptuous delicacy of sizzling words, tasty tenses, and invigorating figures of speech. Your tummy will thank you and your heart will thank you, too.
Ebubechukwu Bruno Nwagbo
Moderator, PIN Food Poetry Contest