Unapologising Poem by kelvin karani

Critics and literary under-weights

(I meant lightweights)

Keep telling us off for our un-creativity.

Our writing is the epitome of futility-

Very literal feigning literariness

And full of tired and sickly expressions



I pity them for their myopia.

When things are so clear

In logic fact and/or otherwise

And you still question them,

You are but the delinquent puppy

Who farts into the fire to extinguish it.



When gluttons like Achebe

Ngugi Lo Liyong p’Bitek and others

Share a bowl, do they leave anything?

All the words and expressions

Have already been used by them.

Now they are all cliché.



Since as time changes so do man

Critics and literary lightweights

Would rather get along with the journalese

Than try swallowing they clenched fists.

There was a time for obscurity-

That coveted saint called literariness,

But now its time for literalness!