CAN THE POET MAKE A GRIOT? Memory and Orality in African Poetry by Niyi Afolabi

In an era of faddish theorizing,
hybridity and other preoccupations,
the discussion of memory and orality
within the context of African poetry is
intriguing. Where does orality end
and literacy begin? And where exactly
is that magical "in-between space" of
transition if orality has been

associated with primitiveness while
literacy is considered the gateway to
civilization? In the contemporary
African experience, the two are not
separable. In fact, in terms of the
relationship between memory, orality
and African poetry, the modern
African poet, like the traditional griot,
owes a lot to memory and oral
traditions. Without memory, the
creative artist dries up like an oasis in
the desert of stifled imagination. As
interpreters of cultures, memory is
that commonality we share through
the imperative of remembering.

 

Contemporary scholarship 2 asso-
ciates orality with authenticity and
literacy with sophistication while
eluding the central issue of memory
in oral traditions. African poetry, be it
traditional or modern, draws exten-
sively from oral traditions and
collective memory. The African
society from which poetry draws
nourishment and inspiration is equally
an oral culture. Between the spoken
and the scribal, orality is an unbroken
tradition. The legacy of writing makes
the transition from oral to written
both a necessity and a challenge to
contemporary writers. The craft of
the oral poet is essentially perform-
ative while technology compels the
literary artist to translate memory,
thoughts and stories into words. It is
in this sense that the modern African
poet combines the attributes of both
the oral and the literary artist through
the creative negotiation of the same
elements of tales, parables, and
proverbs--all of which are
resuscitated from the traditional
treasury.

Borrowing from psychological
findings, Jan Vansina, in "Memory and
Oral Tradition" ( Miller, The African Past
262-279) identifies three major
dimensions of memory processes,
namely, the verbal, the semantic, and
the visual. The verbal code contains all
the retrievable information which
triggers and facilitates verbal expres-
sion. The semantic, considered the
master code, is culturally determined
and acquired during infancy. The
visual refers to the concrete images
retained during initial memory
gathering. Students of oral literature
as history perceive these categories as
interrelated. Even then, the integrity
and necessity of African orature were
established after a long battle by
Ngugi, et. al., in East Africa. The
recurrent question then is how these
oral traditions persist and are
recognizable in contemporary African
cultural production.

In his own study of the strength
of African oral traditions over three
literary periods, Harold Scheub asserts:

The African oral tradition
distills the essences of human
experiences, shaping them
into rememberable, readily
retrievable images of broad
applicability with an extra-
ordinary potential for eliciting
emotional responses. ( African
Studies Review Vol. 28. 2/ 3
( 1985 ):1)

The "performer" Scheub refers to as
the embodiment of "rememberable"
and "retrievable images" ranges from
the griot to the contemporary artist.
The past will be lost for ever and the
present may be forgotten without
such guardians of memory.

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Publication Information: Article Title: Can the Poet Make a Griot? Memory and Orality in African Poetry. Contributors: Niyi Afolabi - author. Journal Title: Griot. Volume: 17. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 1998. Page Number: 20.