Orations
& Poems for Emeagwali By
Bill Clinton
& a dozen spoken word artists
CONTENTS:[MSOffice1]
Ikenga for Philip Emeagwali
Segways
Igbo
Emeagwali’s Significance to Civilization
King God Philip Emeagwali – A Living Hero Moment
Emeagwali Had An Idea
Portrait of an Achiever
Ikemefuna 1 of
A Salute to Computer Pioneers
An Oration for Emeagwali
One of the Great Minds of the Information Age
Chronology of Emeagwali’s Life
Ikenga[MSOffice2] for Philip Emeagwali
By OBU UDEOZO,
According to
Chinua Achebe,
“Udeozo’s
poetry comes to us hot from the foundry of his restless imagination.
He
is a natural poet ready to take on any subject that touches his people.
We
shall hear of him more and more in the years ahead.”
Ikenga
for Philip Emeagwali is excerpted from Cyclone - an anthology of poems
shortlisted for the 2005
Nigeria LNG literature prize.
our
landscape is a catwalk
of
songs;
praise
singing explodes
on
every tongue,
trumpets
and cymbals
more
sonorous than April thunder
escort
long drums and flutes
in
their intoxicated tunes
our
native land
is
aglow with melodies…
ñño,
aka ikenga,
elephants
float
on your right thumb
to
compel the spotlight upon us;
truth
cracked
after
your tessellated models
tore
the digital divide:
their
fresh Ayatollah of malice;
truth
cracked,
when
your chicken over oxen theory
defied
the deified Seymour Cray
to
deliver the crown of science
upon
the African Sun.
this
hemisphere
is a
Christmas of trumpets
our laughter season.
God
who planted
the
Onyx stone of Gad
within
us,
is
redeeming that pledge
of our
sunrise.
our
folks
are
summoned
across
the four winds
for a
steaming fiesta
over Chineke’s
smile upon us;
so,
aka
ikenga,
astride
the surrealist oche ekwu[MSOffice4] handcrafted special
may
courtiers rain you comfort
with
peacock feathers
our
fatherland
is drunk with songs.
what
psalms
shall
we engineer
for
him who
beyond
seven seas and seven terrains
captured
the daybreak of foreign gods
your Papacy in science
radiates in alien tongues
what
algorithms
of
dance steps
shall unravel
this
immanence of our race?
Philip
Emeagwali,
your
over fractious fraternity
at the hot horizons of knowledge
redeemed
the millennial eclipse
of our
ravaged soul.
your
connection machine,
and
honey-combed logic
in
massive parallelism,
awoke dry bones
our God’s gift
which
vindicates Nwagu Aneke[MSOffice5]
that
the children of
shall
outshine the firstborn;
but
they slapped
conspiracy
across your paths,
padlocks
and platinum gates
saluted your dreams
yet
your Chi[MSOffice6]
lit your anointed breath
for
the
whose pocket betrayed
even at home
to
pluck the gold medal
of the
computer age;
a tale
Bill Clinton
sprayed
to a world agape;
a
sugared tale in our innocent ears…
your
train loads of prizes
and
caravan of honours
across
the globe;
a
dizzying statistic
that
at last,
God
has poured
His
sovereign Spirit
upon
all flesh.
our
current godlike mode
of fecundity and genius
across the globe;
is
God’s incomprehensible equity
upon
all mankind;
whether
Black or Yellow or Blue….
Philip
Emeagwali,
aka
Ikenga
astride
the surrealist Oche Ekwu
may
courtiers slake your thirst
with
Divine wine.
mythic
king
of our
bloodline,
we polish
our music with lightning
and
erect anthems
sky
high
at our
Maker’s altar
for a
wonder child
and
proof
that
the lamb and leopard
shall
chew Divine grass
on
at the
appointed feast
of our
Christ
and Redeemer King.
-
Amen.
segways
By OBU UDEOZO,
According to Sunday VANGUARD
“Obu Udeozo’s
poetry resonates with a delightful music
and an amazing simplicity
of idiom. Yet he deals with
very complex emotions and
vivifies every acute metaphor
with a learned grasp of
phenomenal nature…”
Segways
is excerpted from Cyclone - an anthology
of poems
shortlisted for the 2005
Nigeria LNG literature prize.
mathematics is
the
midwife of mysteries
surgeons and spies,
archaeologists
of the mind;
your
tectonic
calculus
delivers
prodigal oil fields
from perpetual loss and darkness
by giving Fillunger’s fiction
the
amazing flesh of truth.
robotic engineering
is
census and prophecy
over
human hairs,
the
water’s backbone;
gravity of flowers and electronic eagles:
and after the
water-maid’s
pure head,
equations
become
flutes, rockets and flowers
become segways….
algorithms
become
gods and Deep Blue
the Deep Blue
that
served Gary Kasparov
a
suplex
but
swore celibacy
at
the rebound…
geometric reasoning –
- the mythic face of kings
betrays
no breast tinted lips…
your geometric reasoning
was
our Moses upon the
colour
coded
against
the infanticide
awaiting
Hebrews and Igbos
astride
time
the God anointed bloodline
to unveil the wind’s cerebellum
the
brain’s hieroglyphics
and
architecture of space.
and now
you
serve
volcanoes a cup of tea
in a
paradise of perfect machines
a concierge of computers
baby-sit
other engines
for laundries, shopping, executive stress;
baby-sitting and browsing the web…
in a seamless patrimony
where
numbers father systems
that sire huge googols of networks;
for our laptops
Internet,
and every PDA
in our pockets
to yield the pay-load
of
Mozart, Emeagwali, Einstein,
Achebe
and Shakespeare
at a whistle call
and to heal every cold and catarrh, debt relief,
cancer, Ebola, neuroses, global warming, exfoliative dermatitis, famine and
create smart weapons systems, smart clothes, polyglot refrigerators or smart
handkerchiefs;
to coddle us, console us, comfort us
at
each whistle call;
in the armpit of rocks
in every face of earth.
for the pay-load
of
Mozart, Emeagwali and Einstein
Achebe
and Shakespeare
to leap into our
solace
whenever we sneeze or sigh or dream
and to oil our laughter
in a paradise of perfect machines…
IGBO
By OBU UDEOZO,
According to
Chinua Achebe,
“Udeozo’s
poetry comes to us hot from the foundry of his restless imagination.
He
is a natural poet ready to take on any subject that touches his people.
We
shall hear of him more and more in the years ahead.”
Igbo
is excerpted from Cyclone - an anthology
of poems
shortlisted for the 2005
Nigeria LNG literature prize.
the earth
vanished into a pin-hole;
I am soaked with songs...
My ancestry’s
sharp beauty baptized me
at the forest’s nipple
- a
pilgrim of delicious peace.
Igbo
space-shuttle
and speech
your
civilisation flowers
in
every face of earth
yet your offspring
hide in the toilets
of foreign tongues
your offspring
bury your sharp beauty
with the inferiority of mad English.
mystic damsel
I shiver
in your tabernacle’s splendour
beyond Bill Gates and microchips,
you fathered supercomputer’s Emeagwali
- a vapour in the ocean
of your maltreated genius.
mystery’s powdered face
succumbs to insight
we must rescue
our lone baby from oblivion’s fire
we must re-plant
our fingerprint
against the monologue of English,
resurrection
awaits those
who drink from our roots
not our suicidal love of foreign gods.
-
by Obu Udeozo.[MSOffice8]
PRESS REVIEWS: CLIPS.
“Udeozo’s Cyclone and Compassion treat almost every subject under the
sun…”
DAILY
SUN.
“ Universality is one word which
summarizes Obu Udeozo’s themes in Cyclone. The poet is versatile in handling varieties
of themes with amazing ease and mastery.”
The
GUARDIAN.
“…his is indeed a most universal range covering traditional African lore,
myths of Africa and other lands, sacred scriptures both Judeo – Christian and
oriental, classical literature and history, music, painting and contemporary
Africa and world affairs. His poetic
range is bewildering….”
Prof. Francis E. Ngwaba Fulbright Scholar.
“….from galaxies to atoms, from deserts to oceans, from sharks to
worms, from cities to forests: he ranges through the landscape of human
experience, bringing together agony, and bliss, betrayal and loyalty…. This volume confirms Udeozo unequivocally as
the master of metaphor.”
Rt.
Rev. Emmanuel S.
Egbunu, Bishop of the Anglican
Diocese, of
“Cyclone is quite simply out of this world. The cover features the 1999 picture “Shark!”
by Jeffrey L. Rotman. The all –
black page 300 has a round “worm hole” leading to the ozone or the galaxy… The equally black page 303 has the poem
“Negative Victor Ludorum” laid upside down etc. The forming and layout of some
of the poems are otherworldly. Beyond
the designs Udeozo remains a poet of solid words, writing a kind of poetry that
sets fire on ice.”
NEWAGE.
“Cyclone is a creatively fierce book which volume and quality,
uniqueness of style, meet at the same sublime summit… Udeozo’s poems are either singing, leaping or
they are just soaring… a seraphic orchestra.
LEADERSHIP
Sunday.
“Obu Udeozo’s poetry resonates with a delightful music and an amazing
simplicity of idiom. Yet he deals with
very complex emotions and vivifies every acute metaphor with a learned grasp of
phenomenal nature…”
Sunday VANGUARD
“Architecture patterns are strikingly used to foster a form – sense
synthesis… The result approximates the
professed goal of the Heideggerian search for a quintessential language.”
The SUNDAY MAGAZINE
“…relentlessly experimental.”
The POST EXPRESS
“Like Okigbo, rainbow, thunder, death…flowers, wine, religion, colours, songs, music, nature,
history, politics, culture, memories, symbolism, entertainments, beauty and
more, are found in Udeozo’s mature and sophisticated simple poetry.”
IN OKIGBO LISTING TO UDEOZO
LEADERSHIP – Sunday
“Udeozo’s poetry comes to us hot from the foundry of his restless
imagination. He is a natural poet ready
to take on any subject that touches his people.
We shall hear of him more and more in the years ahead”.
Chinua Achebe
“A man with a message, a very heavy and urgent message.”
OKIKE: An African Journal of New
Writing
“He strides along the pages trying to recapture the picturesque. Like the master of metaphor that he is, he
translates the brush strokes of his fertile imagination into the canvas of
poetic surrealism… He is on of such spirits stirred by the Divine.”
EMEAGWALI'S
SIGNIFICANCE TO CIVILIZATION[MSOffice9]
By:
Obu Udeozo
An Igbo man from
What does this mean to the Kenyan, the Yoruba, the
Ghanian, the Berom, and the Zulu among us. What does achieving the world's
fastest computation at 3.1 billion calculations per second: implying
break-through in medical science, automobile engineering and many other fields
of knowledge; mean to 20th century society's blackman, and
developing nations?
Several levels of significance exist in human
endeavors. An event qualifies for historical reckoning if it attains the
super-ordinate status and proves of enduring value.
Individuals and nations that make impact to
civilization become wheels upon which the world's progress rolls for ages.
One cannot imagine a world without fire and
agriculture, without reading and writing, without the Egyptians and Greeks,
without Galileo and Einstein, a world without television and electronics, and
now a world without Massive Parallelism
and Emeagwali.
It has not always been this way.
Like a faded photograph, traumas in the recent
past, has blurred our communal minds. After our colonial experience, developing
nations lapsed into psychic inertia: passively watching major developments in
the world, without respectable contributions on our part.
Against this background, Emaegwali's significance
is multifold. His feat is unprecedented. The achievement occurred in a rarefied
field of science. And it represents a climax of on-going
"myth-breaking" events in our own side of the story.
However, one must be wary of hyperboles. Emeagwali
did not manufacture the computer he used, nor can
Emeagwali's achievement is a landmark in an
increasing wave of black triumphs in our time. There is an alarming penetration
of Blacks into territories, which the world had felt were beyond our peculiar
nature.
After the legendary Mohammed Ali's assertion that
there will never be a White World Heavy Weight Boxing Champion, unless there
are no good Blacks, we now have an avalanche of Superstars in several
specialties, Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson, Michael Jordan, Mike Marsh, as if
excellence were a monopoly of MIKES!!
Yet, the demeaning myth endured.
It seemed as if the genius of developing nations
were limited to events needing stamina and not cerebration.
It appeared with almost frightening verisimilitude that we could not perform at those sublime activities which requir