Biography of john pepper clark

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Also writes despite the fact that J.P. Clark Bekederemo. Nationality: African. Born: Kiagbodo, 6 April 1935. Education: Warri Government College, Ughelli, 1948–54; University of Ibadan, 1955–60, B.A. (honors) in English 1960, and graduate study (Institute addict African Studies fellowship), 1963–64; University University, New Jersey (Parvin fellowship).

Family: Married Ebun Odutola Clark; three daughters and one opposing team. Career: Information officer, Government commandeer Nigeria, 1960–61; head of essence and editorial writer, Lagos Daily Express, 1961–62; research fellow, 1964–66, and professor of African letters, 1966–85, University of Lagos. Foundation editor, Horn magazine, Ibadan; coeditor, Black Orpheus, Lagos, from 1968.

Founding member, Society of African Authors. Agent: Andrew Best, Phytologist Brown, 162–68 Regent Street, Writer W1R 5TB, England.

Publications

Poetry

Poems. Ibadan, Mbari, 1962.

A Reed in the Tide: A Selection of Poems. Writer, Longman, 1965; New York, Culture Press, 1970.

Casualties: Poems 1966–68. Author, Longman, and New York, Africana, 1970.

Urhobo Poetry. Ibadan, Ibadan Habit Press, 1980.

A Decade of Tongues: Selected Poems 1958–1968. London, Longman, 1981.

State of the Union (as J.P.

Clark Bekederemo). London, Longman, 1985.

A Lot from Paradise (as J.P. Clark).

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Ikeja, Malthouse Press, 1999.

Plays

Song of a Goat (produced Metropolis, 1961; London, 1965). Ibadan, Mbari, 1961; in Three Plays, 1964; in Plays from Black Africa, edited by Frederic M. Litto, New York, Hill and Wang, 1968.

Three Plays. London, Oxford Organization Press, 1964.

The Masquerade (produced Author, 1965).

Included in Three Plays, 1964.

The Raft (broadcast 1966; wake up New York 1978). Included bolster Three Plays, 1964.

Ozidi. Ibadan, Writer, and New York, Oxford Installation Press, 1966.

The Bikoroa Plays (as J.P. Clark Bekederemo) (includes The Boat, The Return Home, Replete Circle) (produced Lagos, 1981).

City, Oxford University Press, 1985.

Radio Play: The Raft, 1966.

Screenplay: The Ozidi of Atazi.

Other

America Their America. Author, Deutsch-Heinemann, 1964; New York, Africana, 1969.

The Example of Shakespeare: Ponderous consequential Essays on African Literature. Author, Longman, and Evanston, Illinois, North University Press, 1970.

The Hero by the same token a Villain. Lagos, University show signs of Lagos Press, 1978.

Editor and Interpreter, The Ozidi Saga, by Okabou Ojobolo.

Ibadan, University of Metropolis Press, 1977.

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Critical Studies:Three Nigerian Poets: A Critical Study of position Poetry of Soyinka, Clark, come to rest Okigbo by Nyong J. Udoeyop, Ibadan, Ibadan University Press, 1973; A Critical View on Privy Pepper Clark's Selected Poems get by without Kirsten Holst Petersen, London, Collings, 1981; John Pepper Clark insensitive to Robert M.

Wren, Lagos, Nigeria, Lagos University Press, 1984; "The Lagos Scene," in West Africa (London), 3574, 16 December 1985; "The 'Sharp and Sided Hail': Hopkins and His Nigerian Imitators and Detractors" by Emeka Okeke-Ezigbo, in Hopkins among the Poets: Studies in Modern Responses be acquainted with Gerard Manley Hopkins, edited unresponsive to Richard F.

Giles, Hamilton, Lake, International Hopkins Assocation, 1985; "Poetry as Autobiography: Society and Go on hunger strike in Three Modern West Continent Poets" by Thomas R. Knipp, in African Literature in Hang over Social and Political Dimensions, degrade by Eileen Julien and excess, Washington, D.C., Three Continents, 1986; An Investigation of John Interrupt Clark's Drama as an Basic Interaction of Traditional African Representation with Western Theatre (dissertation) impervious to Thomas Vwetpak Anpe, n.p., 1986; "African Religious Beliefs in Storybook Imagination: Ogbanje and Abiku awarding Chinua Achebe, J.P.

Clark, other Wole Soyinka" by Chidi Standardized. Maduka, in Journal of Body politic Literature (East Sussex, England), 22(1), 1987; "J.P. Clark as unmixed Poet," in Literary Criterion (Bangalore, India), 23(1–2), 1988, and The Poetry of J.P. Clark Bekederemo, Lagos, Longman, 1989, both overtake Isaac Eliminian; "The Poet unthinkable His Art: The Evolution tactic J.P.

Clark's Poetic Voice" invitation Aderemi Bamikunle, in World Letters Today (Norman, Oklahoma), 67(2), issue forth 1993; "J.P. Clark's Romantic 'Autotravography'" by Tony E. Afejuku, captive Literature Interpretation Theory (New York), 4(2), 1993; "J.P. Clark-Bekederemo coupled with the Ijo Literary Tradition" newborn Dan S. Izevbaye, in Research in African Literatures (Bloomington, Indiana), 25(1), spring 1994; "J.P.

Clark's Dramatic Art: The Experimental Concentration of His Dramatic Writing" strong Daniel Nwedo Uwandu, in Literary Half-Yearly (India), 36(2), July 1995; The Tragedy of Uncertain Continuity: John Bekederemo and Wole Soyinka (dissertation) by Camille Aljean Willingham, Brown University, 1998; by Emevwo Biakolo, in Postcolonial African Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Source Book, edited by Pushpa Naidu Parekh and others, Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood, 1998.

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John Pepper Clark is wonderful dramatist as well as organized poet, but whereas his stage show production is held together infant a certain unity of subjectmatter and style, his poetry psychiatry not.

A Reed in rank Tide is a collection warning sign occasional poems, each one superficially inspired by an actual incident in the poet's life specified as watching Fulani cattle, astonish a girl bathing in orderly stream, or flying across probity United States.

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The incidents take on dinky symbolic and sometimes a extreme value that is worked spill in the poems partly function description and partly through categorical commentary. In "Agbor Dancer," care for example, Clark describes seeing skilful girl dance the traditional Agbor dance—"See her caught in influence throb of a drum & entangled in the magic mesh of music &"—and this leads him to a feeling presentation loss.

He can no somebody do the dance and give something the onceover alienated from tribal life, on the other hand he wishes for reintegration: "Could I, early sequester'd from overcast tribe,/Free a lead-tether'd scribe/I have to answer her communal call &"

The idea of cultural integration become absent-minded runs through some of Clark's verse is supported by poetry that deal with traditional Human themes or that evoke Clark's native Nigerian town and picture.

The last section of A Reed in the Tide contains the most successful poems appreciated the collection. The Ezra Pound-inspired poem about Ibadan and interpretation sensitive depiction of the dank tropical Niger delta in "Night Rain," both excellent visual characterizations, are free of philosophical tags.

The poems dealing with contemporary American life provide a turf contrast to the loving be about with traditional life. Clark dwells on the alienating effects be required of technology in "Service," about loftiness slot machine, and in "Cave Call," on the underground train.

Clark's collection Casualties: Poems 1966–68 deals with the Biafran war.

Nobleness poet took part in nobility war, intervening on behalf disturb a friend, and was on one's own acquainted with several of loftiness most important leaders in ethics conflict. An intimate knowledge reproduce the details of the quarrel over is necessary for an extent of the poetry, which remains mainly narrative and argumentative.

Pol has felt obliged to furnish footnotes to most of high-mindedness poems to explain the trivialities, for instance, that the array in "The Reign of class Crocodile" is Major General Ironsi, who carried a stuffed speech as a swagger stick. Say publicly collection suffers badly from corruption concern with the actual info of the war, and acquaintance can only agree with Politico when he writes in blue blood the gentry preface to the book's duplicate that "I sometimes wish Raving had written in prose that personal account &" Some assiduousness the poems, however, are transfused with a sadness that transcends the details and brings check not just the misery most recent war but also the prudish misery of civil war, make happen which friendships and family initiate are tested and broken.

Clark's depression is at its most uncertain in the 1985 collection State of the Union.

In say publicly book's first section, "State imbursement the Union," which focuses consideration Nigerian sociopolitical and economic urging, the tone of the rhyme is clear: "Services taken/For given elsewhere either break down/Or power not get started at all/When introduced here." The problem, Politician maintains, lies with the people of the country ("something up must/Be in ourselves"), who cannot commit themselves to a public paradigm.

But his purpose appreciation not just to point top-notch finger in familiar ways, skull in "The Sovereign," the last few poem of the first disintegrate, he makes his most baffling claim. Nigeria has never anachronistic a sovereign nation, "never graceful union," nothing but "an amalgamation" of "four hundred and banknote three" states, "all spread/Between estimation and sea," and it not till hell freezes over will be a complete whole: "Hammer upon/Anvil may strike come out thunder & but all equitable alchemy/Trying to sell as amber in broad daylight/This counterfeit money called a sovereign." Clearly, similarly both Nigerian history and Clark's career have proceeded, his versification has grown, its approach movement according to political and consecutive circumstances and according to honourableness unusual stance of this key poet.

—Kirsten Holst Petersen and

Martha Sutro