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Rubadiri’s poetry genius

 

A story is told of Professor David Rubadiri’s first lectures at Makerere University in Uganda where he had a class of 200 students. He felt overwhelmed by the huge numbers only to realise during examinations time that 170 students only attended his lectures to admire his poetry prowess.

Such is his legacy that Pen Malawi decided to honour the retired great son of Africa with an excellence award due to his contribution to literature in poetry.

Professor Susan Kiguli from Uganda was once his student and says Rubadiri left his mark not only in Malawi, but in Uganda and the whole of East Africa during his time as a lecturer and poetry champion.

Rubadiri with great grand-daughter Neema and grand-daughters Lucy and Lisa

“Many of us in Uganda did not know that he is Malawian. We thought that he was one of our own. But the situation is the same in Kenya, Botswana and various other countries in Africa where he taught,” she says.

Sharing Kiguli’s sentiments is Professor Felix Mnthali who says Rubadiri’s mastery of teaching was marvellous adding that he left an indelible mark everywhere he taught.

“Rubadiri is first and foremost a great teacher. His influence on Dedza Secondary School and Soche Hill Teachers’ College was enormous,” he says.

But, in his hey days, Rubadiri was not just the best teacher whose tutelage earned praise from his students. He was also a fine poet whose pen exuded wit and humour wrapped in simple language.

In poetry, the retired academic don stands “taller than the tree of life” itself, quoting his own lines. He is not just one of the pioneer poets from Malawi and Africa but one of the most widely anthologised poets from Africa who is credited for making poetry, considered to be a hard nut to crack, enjoyable.

In 2000, he told BBC Focus on Africa radio programme that “without poetry, the Bible would not have been written”. That is how Rubadiri views poetry—the literary genre that prides itself in aesthetics of language.

Mnthali explains that Rubadiri’s poetry was bound to be popular, iconic and influential beyond his own humble expectations.

“His poetry is unique in being condensed summaries of our continental response to the condition of Africa since the advent of colonialism,” he explains.

In a poem titled Stanley Meets Mutesa, Rubadiri discusses the entrance of explorer Henry Morton Stanley into King Mutesa’s palace as the closing in of Africa by foreign invaders, Mnthali explains according to stanza 6 lines 9-12 which reads thus: “Mtu Mweupi karibu/white man you are welcome/ The gate of polished reed closes behind them/And the West is let in.”

While in another poem Yet Another Song, Rubadiri tackles issues of dictatorship in Malawi which forced him into exile to Uganda in 1965.

“In this poem, Rubadiri highlights his experiences with the one-party regime and criticises the dictatorship. He makes reference to the joy and excitement that he, like other Malawians, felt following the success of the independence struggle and the end of colonial rule,” explains associate professor Dale Sy Mthatiwa from Chancellor College, a constituent college of the University of Malawi.

The first stanza of the poem reads: ‘Yet another song/I have to sing/In the early wake/of a colonial dusk/ I sang a song of fire.

However, it is in his masterpiece poem titled An African Thunderstorm that his poetic genius comes out clearly in terms of style, language use and theme.

It is a poem that tackles the violent entry of the West into Africa during colonisation of Africa: “From the west/clouds come hurrying with the wind/Turning sharply/Here and there/Like a plague of locusts/whirling/Tossing up things on its tail/Like a madman chasing nothing.”

In these lines, Rubadiri creates a terrific imagery of a storm coming from the West which in stanza 3, passes through the village where children scream with delight, but women are afraid of it.

In the village/Screams of delighted children/Toss and turn/In the din of the whirling wind/Women/Babies clinging on their backs/Dart about/In and Out/Madly/The wind whistles by/Whilst trees bend to let it pass,” reads stanza 3.

Rubadiri’s poetry influenced and shaped many Malawian writers as literary critic and poet Alfred Msadala explains.

“Almost all the accomplished poets in Malawi such as Jack Mapanje, Felix Mnthali, Frank Chipasula and others graduated from a Rubadri’s poem(s), literary class,” says Msadala.

Agreeing with him, Mnthali says virtually all Malawian poets of his generation writing in English picked something from David Rubadiri whether in theme or technique.

According to the Daily Nation of Kenya published on April 12 2013, Rubadiri is “one of Africa’s foremost poets, a Malawian double exile and a diplomat, all rolled into one to form an eclectic mix of wit, charisma and measured words”.

The paper quoted Professor Peter Amuke of Moi University who said:  “What I like most about his poetry is the accessibility of his style. He is simple yet so complex. He made poetry to be sung and enjoyable.”

Some of his early poems were published in the 1963 anthology, Modern Poetry of Africa, and later his works were published in international publications such as Transition, Black Orpheus and Presence Africaine.

A Ugandan poet Beverly Nambozo Nsengiyunva says Rubadiri’s works are some of the widely read in Africa.

“We started learning about his works while young. To us, Professor Rubadiri is the epitome of poetry and we cherish his contribution to the literature world,” she explains.

Rubadiri also co-edited an anthology with David Cook titled Poems from East Africa. He studied at Makerere between 1952-1956 and taught there between 1965 and 1975 when Idi Amin exiled him to Kenya.

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