Amos Tutuola
1920-1997

Tapster of dreams in the bush
of words, witch-verbalist
ghosting the grammar of Empire,
at the seven crossed roads
your tales meet every
which way: old palaver
colonizing new tongue.
From the Deads’ Town
to the new indulgence,
things fall together — juju,
politics, drumtalk, desire.
Post-independence, post-
disillusionment . . . old Africa
never past ‘post’ at all.
Baba-o, no television hand
could trump that oracular head.
The critics who dogged you —
food for Ogun.
Tutuola: cool with dignity.
A libation flows from the calabash
of the moon.

Robert Fox