The Colby Echo

Issue date: 4/13/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Bill Whitledge Dr. Chinyere Grace Okafor

Chinyere Grace Okafor is a formidable human being. She is an accomplished academic and a published author of short fiction and poetry. In addition to these shards of a greater and more impressive resume, she effects a subtly powerful presence, which came strikingly to bear in her lecture and readings on Friday afternoon: "On Love, War, and Place: From the Poet's Diary".

Okafor grew up in Nigeria, specifically within the Ebo nation, but came to make that crazy decision to attend university in Maine. Apparently excelling scholastically, she went on to hold a variety of academic positions before securing her current position as associate professor of Literature and Women's Studies at Wichita State University in Kansas. Anthropological research has taken her back to Nigeria, where she has made extensive studies on the cultural significance of masks. In her fiction, Okafor clearly draws from her hefty volume of academic knowledge, though, happily enough, many of her poems hearken back to her life in Maine. Nevertheless, while the poetry often professes a regard and respect for various aspects of the adopted state, it often simply serves to bear her preoccupation with more potent areas of interest. She records wistfully looking out on the shores of Maine as she contemplated jumping continent and swimming home. She reminisces over the various physical and metaphorical implications of snow. And no matter the subject matter, the poetry is rhythmic, clever, and heart felt.

As a performer, Okafor's powers truly manifest when her topics depart from the frozen North-East to slightly closer a nerve. At such times she becomes rather a vessel of fiery indignation. Particularly when some work of man offends, she expresses ever so eloquently, a deep and personal rage, positively burgeoning from her smart, tweed exterior. Her intimate earnest on these occasions is one of the most striking things about her; when a concept is offensive, it is truly she who is offended, and in turn, when an aspect of the world elates, she is uplifted. Rather than ars gratia artis, she would seem to compose her works for herself and the world, and because of the one within the other. While the latter is no radical departure from the spirit of much modern poetry, it was particularly relevant in Okafor's performance, as presented in the wake of a lecture on her cultural background.

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