Theory in Poetic Form: Responding to the Book of Clouds

Allow me to begin by professing my profound gratitude to my colleagues for their generous engagement with The Book of Clouds, both at the panel at the AAR in 2024 and in this written form. As a poet has said, “It’s ears’ and hearts’ buying that sets words’ price, not what the selling tongues and pens devise.”

I would like to first provide some background to the project’s genesis, before engaging with some of my colleagues’ responses more specifically, explaining my intentions and hopes for this work.

Background and Influences

I was raised and nurtured in a poetic atmosphere. My father was a poet—he actually wrote part of the Nigerian national anthem—and a musician. My first understanding and critiques of what I later came to know as “colonial modernity” came from discussions of Fela Kuti and Bob Marley’s lyrics with him.

In both my early childhood in Lagos and my upbringing in the diaspora in Delaware, I was surrounded by:Madīḥ poetry

Christian hymns

Reggae, hip-hop, and old-school Afrobeats

Yoruba poetic performances at funerals and weddings

Discussions of Wole Soyinka’s esoteric poetry and plays

My mother introduced me to James Taylor, made me memorize poems by Langston Hughes, and encouraged me to write my own.

But despite this fertile ambience, I somehow never thought of poetry as a means of conducting