Chike Ofili, Brand Consultant, Pens The Weight of Waiting

Selling poetry in Nigeria is similar to selling insurance. Whilst the former often challenges understanding in its elusive form, insurance is even worse, it does not only deal with the elusiveness of understanding the need for the product on offer, it is also a non-physical one. It cannot be touched, held or felt the way poetry can. Yet these two are related; poetry attends to the subconscious and conscious needs of people, providing meaning in a moment of maze; just as insurance provides a helping hand in a moment of loss. For ever providing support to mankind, their weaknesses nonetheless, poetry and insurance will never go out of business.

This explains why poetry devotees among whom is Mr. Chike Ofili, a social brand marketing communications management consultant at Reputations Consulting, can still retain his ties to poetry with his new book, The Weight of Waiting, published in 2009, eight years after his first book, Our Unspoken Ties (2001).

The book which is in three parts: The Burden of Becoming; Homeless Homeland; and Heartthrobs & Heartbreaks, is published by Documentary Concerns, Lagos.

At the back of the book, the blurb writer says: “The Weight of Waiting is a poetic diary of a destiny detained, of self and society as they intertwine in a mutual fate that waits to become, an angry love for country and women that has refused to become, and whose unbecoming behaviour blights all things bright and beautiful in a withering wait.”

The blurb further says that “This is not another layer, or tome of monotone that has become Nigeria’s portrait poetry. Almost every poem took its own tone and tested thought in a delightful cadence.” Concluding, the blurb says “The Weight of Waiting is a Waiting for Godot on a poetic path; Walt Whiteman and Pablo Neruda also met here.”

Asked what he thought of his book, Mr. Chike Ofili says: “My book, The Weight of Waiting, 2009, gives an orchestra voice and seethed cadence to the bottled-up generational anger of the Nigerian youths betrayed by their country, fathers and forebears. It is the angry state of the nation in poetry splintering into the individual and the global. The Weight is poetic, yet articulate with a cloven tongue of coal.”

In a self-assured boast, Mr. Ofili says, “If buyers, readers and reviewers do not find The Weight of Waiting different and rewarding of their time, I would refund such purchases and make up for such efforts if they email me on chikeofili08023409781@yahoo.com.