WHAT IS TRANSGRESSIVE ABOUT S. OLA AJIMISAN'S TRANSGRESSIVE RUBRICS

S. Ola Ajimisan, the cosmopolitan literary erudite and scholarly trailblazer adds yet another book of Poetry to the library of world literature. In his usual habit with a unique title; "Transgressive Rubrics".

The question is, what is Transgressive in S.O Ajimisan's Transgressive Rubrics?

Permit me at this juncture and on this global podium to herald you into the creative mind of the scholar, poet and playwright as he journey you through the heart of his new book of Poetry. 

POET'S PREFACE

Style is the sheer glorification of transgressions tooled up and traitorously tailored with courage, consistency and persistence to become a norm or institutionalised way of doing things. Every new form is a radical repudiation of and a drastic departure from the norm, convention and tradition. Such is the journey or the struggle of life. Man has to wage ceaseless war against nature, to survive and to build a paradise of his dream. This collection of poems is a product or perhaps, I should say, a corollary of man's insatiable struggle, rebellion or war against traditions in eternally dynamic postmodernist era.

Each of the poems transgresses borders of conventionality and stylistic patterns to still preach morality and challenges the existing tradition to establish yet another innovative tradition. That is why the collection is entitled Transgressive Rubrics. Each of the poems also lends credence to the fact that is naturally a rebellious being who continues to rebel against nature and his socio-cultural habitat to subsist or exist in the face of challenges which are the Siamese twins of his quotidian existence. The work is not perfect because the author or any human author in world is not perfect. Be that as it may, I do not set out to write a perfect book but to write a book that sends universal message with universal appeal to the various echelons of human stratifications. 

The collection, in the poet's perception, tells the universal truth, which from African perspectives may be misconstrued to be libelous. Probably, that was why Bertolt Brecht submitted that "truth makes the greatest libel". Truth, though relative or objective, wears the toga of transgression to torment those who do not like it. Such is the poetic peregrination in this book prepared from folkloric Afrocentric aesthetics, to speak the truth to cultures and colours, for truth has no colour, culture, creed or race. Truth told to those who hate it is better than falsehood sold to those who pay you to tell it.

      The collection is, therefore, transgression taken too far. It is the poet's firm faith that it will be an interesting and thought-provoking read for global readership and glotizens (global citizens) one of whom I am, even though OTHERS think there is confusion in my colour; neither black nor sepia. The poet also uses the collection as a channel for the amplification of what he calls "Eroto-poetry", which is another sub-genre of Contemporary African Poetry that explores gender issues or discourses with semi-pornographic diction.