Songs for Wonodi - Publisher's Devil in Overdrive

Just a few months before my good friend Molara Wood left her life in London to join Next - that paper that is stealing Nigerian writers including Tolu Ogunlesi and Toni Kan from other employers, she mentioned to me a new call for submissions for an Anthology to be edited by Dike Okoro. Incidentally, just a few days earlier, I had chanced on a review on the Internet of Songs for Wonodi edited by Dike Okoro. This review by Jessica Bastidas had a sectioned that mentioned my name in this context:

Despite all the emptiness that was felt, they never stopped believing and never stopped loving. Although many other poems described the love for one’s country, Nnorom Azuonye reveals that insatiable love in “My homeland”.

They lie like bitter, twisted ruins
Battered by wind, age, and rain
Because once in them, they exude
A generosity of spirit, second to none.
Poverty, sickness, and diseases
I do not deny
The tantalizing taste of uziza
The tingling sensation of suya
Are all witnesses to my secret deal
With Africa, my beautiful homeland. (68)

Words as “bleak,” “corruption,” “deceptive,” “awe,” and “allure” all describe what is seen that the eyes cannot behold. Azuonye uses these words to describe the overall physical and emotional devastation. Even though only remnants remain of what once were there, the memories that live in those remnants, no matter how small, are never forgotten. That force to never letting go, no matter what ails them, is vivid.

I said to Molara, 'I recall sending some poems to Dike. He never got back to me to say he would use the poems, only for me to see a review in which a poem attributed to me is quoted.' I use the word attributed because, first of all, I DO NOT recall writing a poem entitled 'My Homeland.' Secondly, as I read those lines, as beautiful as they are, they didn't sound like me. Everything I have ever written, good or bad writing, depending on the judge, I have deliberately written as it is and I would recognise my words any time any place and I certainly did not write the words being attributed to me. Unless of course I was drunk, and I have been drunk a few times in my life. Even as I write this, I have prepared myself for lunch with half a glass of Chianti - which on an empty stomach makes me feel a little like I have had a Gulder or two.

Molara was kind enough to provide Dike Okoro's email address to me, and I wrote to request a copy of the book. Several e-mails later and a few reminders on Facebook messaging service, the book arrived this morning. As I searched for my name and my poems, I chuckled when I saw Amatoritsero Ede's legendary difficult name severally and insistently printed as 'Amaritsero.' 'Fuck! Dike, Amatoritsero will kill you,' I said to myself as I thumbed through the book. Then I found my name. Two poems appeared under my name; 'Isuikwuato' my favourite poem about my village which I wrote in 1989 when my life was still full of hope and optimism, first published in Summer 1990 in Agenda (UK), and 'My Homeland' which I did not recognise, because I did not write it when my life was at any kind of point - in fact, I did not write it at all.

It was like a Mike Tyson punch below the belt. The first thing that caused me severe pain was that the last line of Isuikwuato in Songs for Wonodi reads: Jenna Nkechy Akuchie, just after the actual last line; 'without fear or pain.' So anybody who reads this poem will be completely disorientated as the last line does not make any sense at all with regards to the rest of the poem.

Then I spent a few minutes looking at the notes on contributors and found an entry for a Jenna Nkechy Akuchie author of the 1994 poetry collection Crossing the Frontiers. (I wonder if Jenna is in any way related to fellow Umuahian and old friend Reginald Akuchie). There are no notes on a person known as Nnorom Azuonye. Poor Jenna does not appear in the Contents pages at all.

I suspect that 'My Homeland' was written by Jenna Nkechy Akuchie. This means that Jessica Bastidas' review should have read:

Despite all the emptiness that was felt, they never stopped believing and never stopped loving. Although many other poems described the love for one’s country, Jenna Nkechy Akuchie reveals that insatiable love in “My homeland”.

They lie like bitter, twisted ruins
Battered by wind, age, and rain
Because once in them, they exude
A generosity of spirit, second to none.
Poverty, sickness, and diseases
I do not deny
The tantalizing taste of uziza
The tingling sensation of suya
Are all witnesses to my secret deal
With Africa, my beautiful homeland. (68)

Words as “bleak,” “corruption,” “deceptive,” “awe,” and “allure” all describe what is seen that the eyes cannot behold. Akuchie uses these words to describe the overall physical and emotional devastation. Even though only remnants remain of what once were there, the memories that live in those remnants, no matter how small, are never forgotten. That force to never letting go, no matter what ails them, is vivid.

I was going to send this to Dike in private, but the reviews of this book are in the public domain, and dear Jenna must have been finding it extremely annoying. I would.

I am sorry Jenna

I didn't mean to steal your thunder

I didn't edit that anthology

And I didn't publish it.

I am sorry Jenna

If you want to hold somebody's neck

Try Dike Okoro's and bosses at Malthouse Press

What kind of excuses will they have?

I am convinced that Dike Okoro and Malthouse Press have been aware of the screw up on My Homeland but have made no attempt at a corrigendum whatsoever - even with a small note in response to the review by Jessica Bastidas, or a note inserted in copies of the book as they sell them.

- NNOROM AZUONYE