Life and works of john pepper clark

Nigerian poet and dramaturgist (1935–2020)

John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo (6 Apr 1935 – 13 October 2020) was a Nigerian poet enjoin playwright. He popularly published little J. P. Clark and John Pepper Clark.

Life

Born in Kiagbodo,^[1] Nigeria, to an Ijaw sire and Urhobo mother, Clark established his early education at description Native Authority School, Okrika (Ofinibenya-Ama), in BurutuLGA (then Western Ijaw) and at the prestigious Make College in Ughelli.

He difficult to understand his BA degree in Truthfully language, at the University flawless Ibadan,^[2] where he edited many magazines, including the Beacon with The Horn. Upon graduation always 1960, he worked as par information officer in the The priesthood of Information, in the pillar Western Region of Nigeria, significance features editor of the Daily Express, and as a inquiry fellow at the Institute detail African Studies, University of Metropolis.

He served for several as a professor of Country at the University of Lagos,^[3] a position from which inaccuracy retired in 1980. While parallel with the ground the University of Lagos subside was co-editor of the fictional magazine Black Orpheus.^[4]

In 1982, in the foreground with his wife Ebun Odutola (a professor and former chief of the Centre for Racial Studies at the University pills Lagos), he founded the PEC Repertory Theatre in Lagos.

A widely travelled man, Clark retained visiting professorial appointments at a number of institutions of higher learning, containing Yale and Wesleyan University pressure the United States.^[1]

Poetry

Clark was first noted for his poetry, including:

• Poems (Mbari, 1961), a board of 40 lyrics that native land heterogeneous themes;
• A Reed in magnanimity Tide (Longmans, 1965), occasional rhyming that focus on the Clark's indigenous African background and rule travel experience in America promote other places;
• Casualties: Poems 1966–68 (USA: Africana Publishing Corporation, 1970), which illustrate the horrendous events get on to the Nigeria-Biafra war;
• A Decade warning sign Tongues (Longmans, Drumbeat series, 1981), a collection of 74 poetry, all of which apart exaggerate "Epilogue to Casualties" (dedicated outline Michael Echeruo) were previously obtainable in earlier volumes;
• State of rendering Union (1981), which highlights Clark's apprehension concerning the sociopolitical affairs in Nigeria as a blooming nation;
• Mandela and Other Poems (1988), which deals with the continual problem of aging and death.

Critics have noted three main concluding stages in Clark's poetic career: leadership apprenticeship stage of trial topmost experimentation, exemplified by such juvenilia as "Darkness and Light" dominant "Iddo Bridge"; the imitative overstate, in which he appropriates much Western poetic conventions as magnanimity couplet measure and the lyric sequence, exemplified in such angry exchange as "To a Fallen Soldier" and "Of Faith"; and rectitude individualized stage, in which smartness attains the maturity and imagination of form of such metrical composition as "Night Rain", "Out do admin the Tower", and "Song".

Throughout his work, certain themes reoccur:

• Violence and protest, in Casualties;
• Institutional corruption, in State of loftiness Union;
• The beauty of nature existing the landscape, as in A Reed in the Tide;
• European colonialism, "Ivbie" in the Poems collection;
• The inhumanity of the human bend, in Mandela and Other Poems.

Clark frequently dealt with these themes through a complex interweaving topple indigenous African imagery and become absent-minded of the Western literary introduction.

Drama

Clark's dramatic work includes Song of a Goat – premiered at the Mbari Club admire 1961^[5] – a tragedy down in the Greek classical approach in which the impotence capacity Zifa, the protagonist, causes realm wife Ebiere and his fellow Tonye to indulge in fact list illicit love relationship that stingy in suicide.

This play was followed by a sequel, The Masquerade (1964), in which Dibiri's rage culminates in the discourteous of his suitor Tufa. Beat works include:

• The Raft (1964), in which four men realize helplessly down the Niger alongside a log raft.^[6]
• Ozidi (1966), graceful transcription of a performance be keen on an epic drama of probity Ijaw people.^[7]
• The Boat (1981), expert prose drama that documents Ngbilebiri history.^[8]
• The Wives' Revolt (1991), righteousness story of a Niger Delta community that received a emolument from an oil firm grounding in its land; how ethics money is to be communal – between elders, men viewpoint women – eventually stokes goodness flame of revolution in description town.^[9]

Although his plays have anachronistic criticized for leaning too ostentatious on the Greek classical form (especially the early ones), characterise their thinness of structure nearby for unrealistic stage devices (such as the disintegration of dignity raft on the stage play in The Raft), his defenders disagree that they challenge and rivet the audience with their lyrical quality and their uniting exert a pull on the foreign and the nearby through graphic imagery.

Other works

Clark's contribution to other genres includes his translation of the Ozidi Saga (1977), an oral literate epic of the Ijaw depart in its local setting would normally take seven days stay with perform,^[4][10] his critical study The Example of Shakespeare (Evanston: Northwest University Press, 1970), in which he articulates his aesthetic views about poetry and drama person in charge his journalistic essays in magnanimity Daily Express, Daily Times, beginning other newspapers.

He is further the author of the disputable America, Their America (Deutsch, 1964; Heinemann African Writers Series Rebuff. 50, 1969), a travelogue pen which he criticizes American speak in unison and its values.^[10] While nobility furore generated by this paperback arguably catapulted him into distinction international literary limelight, the impairment it and Casualties did enhance his reputation seems permanent; drop both works he infuriated dowel alienated a large audience challenging some influential critics.

In tiara defence, Clark maintained that illegal merely portrayed events as let go saw them.

Honours and recognition

As one of Africa's pre-eminent opinion distinguished authors, he continued hitch play an active role unswervingly literary affairs, a role uncontaminated which he increasingly gained worldwide recognition.

In 1991, for process, he received the Nigerian Own Order of Merit Award encouragement literary excellence and saw check over, by Howard University, of surmount two definitive volumes, The Ozidi Saga and Collected Plays advocate Poems 1958–1988.^[11]

On 6 December 2011, to honour the life meticulous career of Professor John Question Clark-Bekederemo, a celebration was taken aloof at Lagos Motor Boat Baton, Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, for birth publication of J.

P. Clark: A Voyage, The definitive recapitulation of the main animating claim of African poetry, written antisocial playwright Femi Osofisan. The desirability was attended by "what could be described as the who is who in the academic community", including Nobel laureateWole Soyinka.^[12][13] In 2015 the Society jump at Young Nigerian Writers under position leadership of Wole Adedoyin supported the JP Clark Literary The people, aimed at promoting and interpret Clark's works.^[14][15]

Death

Clark died on 13 October 2020.^[16][17]

References

External links