By TONY MOCHAMA and WILBERFORCE OKWIRI

What does the future hold for poetry in East Africa? Has time for juicy pieces like Okot P’Bitek’s Song of Lawino gone? Can the glory be reclaimed? Albeit these could be questions many poetry lovers may ask, artistes argue the genre is thriving and would never die.

After studying Geography and Mathematics at the University of Nairobi in 1998, Kennedy Odongo Leaky a.k.a Kennet B dropped his love for numbers for poetry.

Now he is a household name in many poetry events across the world.

“This is where my talent rested and I pursued it. I don’t regret having joined the world of poetry,” he says.

About a week ago, he was among the few African poets invited to perform in Arusha Tanzania at an event, When China Meets Africa, organised by Arusha Poetry Club.

Here, Odongo shared a platform with Cai Tianxin, a professor of mathematics who has published 20 poetry books.

When Icelandic poet Marc Vincenz visited Kenya in 2010, he described the country’s nascent poets: ‘You, on a whirl, birds of passion performing for shadow cousins, dreaming of dust and fog, and the fall of rust and paint and broken nails – the sound which arises is singular: a noise, but no, not music – not quite yet.”

“That,” Marco said, “ is from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.”

Prof Peter Amuka of Moi University argues that poetry is everywhere in our daily life; in the languages we speak, and songs we sing.

He, however, says that most of the current crop of poets in Kenya only perform in organised parties and events and forget about it immediately after.

“They perform at parties and political rallies just to ‘beat other person’, not to enjoy. Again in learning institutions, poetry is performed only during Drama and Music festivals,” he says.

He says the genre was started on a wrong note, with English poetry, using foreign language; what he says has brought fear to many people.

“People believe poetry is hard. This has made it lose taste and beautiful poetry is not popular now. In schools, students painfully learn it to pass exams and dump it thereafter,” remarks Prof Amuka.

He says that some musicians in Kenya have used poetry well in their songs, giving example with Suzanna Owiyo’s Kisumu 100 song.

“Owiyo used poetry well and it was good. Many others have also tried,” he says.

Cindy Ogana, a poetess and a host of a programme in Radio Ghetto, Nairobi, says that even though there have been challenges, the genre was still alive.

“Poetry is alive and well,” says Ogana.

Ogana’s view is also echoed by Poetry and Writers’ Online (Powo)) poetess Njeri Wangari-Wanjohi.

She says, “the online revolution has opened up vast new opportunities for poets to self-publish in Kenya.”

In a writing workshop in February, Njeri, however, agreed that there’s too much love lyrics, political protest essaying and performance posturing posing as poetry in Kenya.

Tom Odhiambo, a lecturer at the Literature Department, University of Nairobi, advises:  “Poetry is all around us. Open your eyes and give it life. Put your thoughts down and relay them to others with passion and in your own unique style. This is what the world calls ‘voice.’”

Even as Powo prepares for their next event, ‘Leaving Legacies’ on November 3, which will be dedicated to the memories of recently demised Barbara Kimenye, Frank Odoi and Margaret Ogola, and Chris Wanjala, also of University of Nairobi, is sceptical  about ‘new’ poetic revolution .

“If poetry cannot feed you, clothe you, put a roof over one’s head or be remembered by future generations, can it be said to be alive?” he poses.

Kingwa Kamenchu, a poet who recently returned from Oxford University, thinks poetry lags far behind music in popularity amongst Kenyan folks, and blames it on “bad high schooling and lack of travel, reading and exposure to culture afterwards”.

It is argued that Kamenchu’s assertion could have impact in a country where “reading a weekend newspaper and one ‘Self Help’ book a month” is considered the very height of literary sophistication.

Khainga Okembwa is a poet and a member of PEN Kenya who believes that it is up to poets to immortalise themselves and the genre.

Indeed, it has been a long road from the 1990s, when the entire poetry community could, and used to, fit into the auditorium room of the old British Council in the Nairobi’s CBD. “It is unthinkable that all this time, there hasn’t been an African poetry book series until now,” glowed Laura Sillerman.

Some of the celebrated  African poets are Wole Soyinka, Micere Mugo, Taban Lo Liyong, David Rubadiri, Okot P’Bitek, among others.

Sillerman adds, “Poetry is as much music as it is language, as much rhythm as it is form. It is the birth-right of the African.”

This literary philanthropist at the start of October 2012, launched The Sillerman First Book Prize for African Writing that offers Sh85 000 for a fifty page manuscript of poems, and Sh420 000 Brunel Poetry prize for ten serious poems to be administered by Briton- Nigerian Bern Evaristo.