Dear Professor Gloria:
Falola is not talking about polyandry. He knows well that an impotent man will not do the job whether he is with one woman or multiple women. He is not talking about the women having multiple husbands to have children. Falola is challenging us to see some of the hidden ways polygamy works to produce children. He wants us to consider that in a polygamous home when the man is impotent (the man knows it and the wives know it), the women can help themselves to pregnancy by sleeping with other men. This is why he is invoking polygamy. There are multiple stories about this practice in Nigeria, tales about the hidden weapons of wives frustrated by weak penises. Often these straying women do their thing discreetly to maintain their dignity and that of their husbands.
This "hidden practice or weapon" can also happen in monogamous families. But the issue might be more prevalent in large polygamous homes where the women wait for a long time to get to their turns to sleep with their husbands. The practice of sleeping with other men in some cases would have been well habituated before impotency starts.
Falola is only messing up with our brains. He wants us to go beyond the ordinary or usual ways we think about the production of children in marriages. For him, the poem does not point to this fact before announcing fruitlessness, childlessness in the marriage. There is more than one way to be fruitful in a marriage. Thanks for your attention.
Nimi Wariboko
From: 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday, October 1, 2023 at 2:08 PM
To: Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA <chidi.opara@gmail.com>, usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Anniversary Of Nothing (Poem) (Repost)
In fact this is a beautiful
poem. It is one of the best, stylistically,
structurally, and methodologically speaking.
Alliteration is successfully infused into
the verse.Vocabulary is well chosen
and sophisticated.The rhythm 🎵
and rhyming are masterfully
of Ousmane Sembene's " Xala," although
the context is somewhat different.
But at the end of the day, it is about
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA <chidi.opara@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 1, 2023 4:29 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Anniversary Of Nothing (Poem) (Repost)
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Oga TF, Gloria,
The point the poem is trying to make with the metaphor is that the marriage was not consummated as a result of the lack of capacity of one partner, so the anniversary is an anniversary of nothing.
On Saturday, 30 September 2023, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
What happens to polygamy/polygyny?
To flare his flabby phallus.
Their nuptial not consummated.
Years of connubial pretence
And conjugal duties not performed,
The celebrations of impotency,
The anniversaries of nothing.
(Poem presented as social service, all rights reserved)
--
Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, Professional Fellow of Institute Of Information Management Africa, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador, Registered Freight Forwarder and Editorial Adviser at News Updates.
More about him here: https://independent.academia.edu/ChidiAnthonyOpara
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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, Professional Fellow of Institute Of Information Management Africa, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador, Registered Freight Forwarder and Editorial Adviser at News Updates.
More about him here: https://independent.academia.edu/ChidiAnthonyOpara
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