Basit Olatunji | FOUNTAIN UNIVERSITY, OSOGBO, OSUN STATE (original) (raw)
Talks by Basit Olatunji
Papers by Basit Olatunji
Journal of Applied Language and Culture Studies, 2023
The deployment of language by a writer creates a distinct style through which he/she reaches out ... more The deployment of language by a writer creates a distinct style through which he/she reaches out to the audience. Hence, a socio-stylistic study of Gabriel Bamgbose's Something Happened After the Rain is undertaken in order to reveal how the poet makes use of language. To achieve this, lexico-syntactic choices, graphological devices, and morphological choices of the poet are analysed. At the end of the study, it is discovered that Bamgbose employs the use of Pidgin English, figurative expressions like metaphor, personification, euphemism, repetition, pun, refrain and foregrounding in order to make his ideas and messages relatable to his readers. In this regard, he has succeeded in deploying sarcasm even in the most serious and sensitive issues like death, child labour and delivery as in "Song of a child" and "If I die". It has also been found out that Bamgbose presents the poems in the studied text in five sections and each section has a distinctive title. Each title captures the general image, mood and tone of the poems in each section. "Sing" expresses celebration and joy of birth, childhood and maidenhood; "Speak" expresses a break away from repression and silence; "Die" captures dying and death itself; "Dream" expresses hallucination and how loneliness or frustration makes one's mind, unguardedly, stroll into wild imaginations; then "Rain" carries the burden of sorrow and pains accruable after the disasters of the rain. It can therefore be concluded that Bamgbose's language style underscores the Yoruba assertion that tragic matters often deserve smileful reactions.
Keyword: Language, Style, Poetry, Socio-stylistics
Academia Letters, 2021
Before I stumbled on the inspiration that gave birth to this write-up, I had always consciously a... more Before I stumbled on the inspiration that gave birth to this write-up, I had always consciously avoided joining in any debate that had to do with the Nigerian polity. I believed that doing so was pointless since ours is a country where the craziest and the creepiest of things happens everyday. So I thought it's worthless catching some nasty headache for the sake of the country that has refused to be serious for once. For me, Nigeria is an eerily unbelievable country where sanity is far from making sense. But sometimes, I get pricked by this bizarre amalgam called Nigeria. In my silence (before I broke it recently), I had always respected the contributions of those who never get tired of talking about this country despite its daily dose of madness. However, I personally don't agree with them on certain grounds but I sincerely respect them for always trying to cope with this madness. About two years ago, I finally decided to break my silence because of two incidents. The first one is the piece that Dr M.A. Lateef of the Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University wrote about the perennial fuel scarcity and how he refused to buy at inflated price despite the hurl of insults from the petrol attendant. His courage to confront injustice in a country where doing so makes you a non-conformist really shocked me and amazed me at the same time. The second incident took place on the pages of Random Blues by Niyi Osundare, where I had quite a long quizzical dialogue with the following gripping lines. Silence is serpent With a fatal fang Bring the wand, bring the word Let's hit its head with a vocal bang In the lines above I encountered the much talked about power of poetry, which got me overwhelmed and hit me with so much urgency that struck me with the ideas embodied by
Books by Basit Olatunji
Lambert Academic Publishing, 2018
Rainbow in My Heart, Feb 12, 2015
The moon comes out like a dot and emboldens one to move into a universal light with periodic rene... more The moon comes out like a dot and emboldens one to move into a universal light with periodic renewal. Basit Olatunji's evolution with this piece has a similar metamorphosis with the moon. Perhaps the fact that both deal with the same principles of space is one reason for both to follow the same process.
The colours of rainbow are said to be seven, but are they? Do we have to differentiate between blue and purple, orange and yellow? Yes, the combination of two gives birth to one and more and more. Thus, in a rainbow, colours are buried in colours, giving birth to more colours. So the genre employed by Olatunji is the very best medium for the depth of messages carried in his rainbow heart. The tip of the tongue alone does not convey the taste. It takes the depth of the palate to really savour something. This rainbow in the poet's heart has many colours: life, love, hope, and despair.
Journal of Applied Language and Culture Studies, 2023
The deployment of language by a writer creates a distinct style through which he/she reaches out ... more The deployment of language by a writer creates a distinct style through which he/she reaches out to the audience. Hence, a socio-stylistic study of Gabriel Bamgbose's Something Happened After the Rain is undertaken in order to reveal how the poet makes use of language. To achieve this, lexico-syntactic choices, graphological devices, and morphological choices of the poet are analysed. At the end of the study, it is discovered that Bamgbose employs the use of Pidgin English, figurative expressions like metaphor, personification, euphemism, repetition, pun, refrain and foregrounding in order to make his ideas and messages relatable to his readers. In this regard, he has succeeded in deploying sarcasm even in the most serious and sensitive issues like death, child labour and delivery as in "Song of a child" and "If I die". It has also been found out that Bamgbose presents the poems in the studied text in five sections and each section has a distinctive title. Each title captures the general image, mood and tone of the poems in each section. "Sing" expresses celebration and joy of birth, childhood and maidenhood; "Speak" expresses a break away from repression and silence; "Die" captures dying and death itself; "Dream" expresses hallucination and how loneliness or frustration makes one's mind, unguardedly, stroll into wild imaginations; then "Rain" carries the burden of sorrow and pains accruable after the disasters of the rain. It can therefore be concluded that Bamgbose's language style underscores the Yoruba assertion that tragic matters often deserve smileful reactions.
Keyword: Language, Style, Poetry, Socio-stylistics
Academia Letters, 2021
Before I stumbled on the inspiration that gave birth to this write-up, I had always consciously a... more Before I stumbled on the inspiration that gave birth to this write-up, I had always consciously avoided joining in any debate that had to do with the Nigerian polity. I believed that doing so was pointless since ours is a country where the craziest and the creepiest of things happens everyday. So I thought it's worthless catching some nasty headache for the sake of the country that has refused to be serious for once. For me, Nigeria is an eerily unbelievable country where sanity is far from making sense. But sometimes, I get pricked by this bizarre amalgam called Nigeria. In my silence (before I broke it recently), I had always respected the contributions of those who never get tired of talking about this country despite its daily dose of madness. However, I personally don't agree with them on certain grounds but I sincerely respect them for always trying to cope with this madness. About two years ago, I finally decided to break my silence because of two incidents. The first one is the piece that Dr M.A. Lateef of the Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University wrote about the perennial fuel scarcity and how he refused to buy at inflated price despite the hurl of insults from the petrol attendant. His courage to confront injustice in a country where doing so makes you a non-conformist really shocked me and amazed me at the same time. The second incident took place on the pages of Random Blues by Niyi Osundare, where I had quite a long quizzical dialogue with the following gripping lines. Silence is serpent With a fatal fang Bring the wand, bring the word Let's hit its head with a vocal bang In the lines above I encountered the much talked about power of poetry, which got me overwhelmed and hit me with so much urgency that struck me with the ideas embodied by
Lambert Academic Publishing, 2018
Rainbow in My Heart, Feb 12, 2015
The moon comes out like a dot and emboldens one to move into a universal light with periodic rene... more The moon comes out like a dot and emboldens one to move into a universal light with periodic renewal. Basit Olatunji's evolution with this piece has a similar metamorphosis with the moon. Perhaps the fact that both deal with the same principles of space is one reason for both to follow the same process.
The colours of rainbow are said to be seven, but are they? Do we have to differentiate between blue and purple, orange and yellow? Yes, the combination of two gives birth to one and more and more. Thus, in a rainbow, colours are buried in colours, giving birth to more colours. So the genre employed by Olatunji is the very best medium for the depth of messages carried in his rainbow heart. The tip of the tongue alone does not convey the taste. It takes the depth of the palate to really savour something. This rainbow in the poet's heart has many colours: life, love, hope, and despair.