The writing workshop which was slated for 10:30am was handled by Igoni Barrett, with Keeney unavoidably absent due to a hitch in her journey back to Abuja from Makurdi. 4pm later in the day, however, saw her back invigorated and energized nevertheless, as she read her poems with gusto and emotion.
 
Her crispy introductory statements reflected this teacher of English and Creative Writing’s skills at her ability to achieve clarity with the spoken word. The first poem she read, “ Swimming Alone,” is a poem which according to her, it takes place in a summer by a Canadian lake in the morning. A poem about crossing borders, it takes us through the thoughts of a swimmer who is torn between wanting to take a plunge in a warm lake and the risks associated with the act:” They warm you not to / dangerous they say/ what if…”
 
Her second poem, “Just Touching”, is a romantic poem in which a jilted lover reflects on his immediate state of mind brought on by his separation from his partner. It takes place in a Canadian bar in winter, with various verses steeped in imagery: “I’m a goldfish in a bowl / my glass house travels any air / the white flakes purr, pour their round geometry/ two glasses on the dark table in a pool of yellow, half-filled.”
 
 “The I Love You List” was the next poem and in this case it was an appreciation of a partner’s unconditional love. “Anything That Matters” was the fourth poem and the third on the romance list. This time, the romance in the poem is soured and in an exchange of words between the lovers we see the major verse which causes the rift:” This not a tragedy” one lover argues, while the other who is not willing to be separated says “come into this cool bed while the rain spits and sizzles on the sill…”
 
Three poems were read thereafter in quick succession, first of which was “Geraldine”, in memory of her daughter, when she was six and mourning her favourite pet gerbil of a few years. “Your  inspiration sometimes comes from our children”, Keeney points out with a smile. “Pen and Sound” was rendered after that, a poem written by the poet in her attempt to address the position of women in the society with respect to their male counterparts. A feminist poem you may add, an opinion corroborated by the poet as she shares her experiences as a teacher with her female students who think strongly of feminism.
        
 “Message from Ephesus”, the last of the seven poems read by Keeney can be likened to the icing on the cake. Replete with facts from mythology, religion, history and of course feminism, the poet literally saves the best for the last. In the poem, she juxtaposes two religious heroines from different eras in an attempt to justify the ironies found in the central message surrounding their reverence.
 
A Catholic faithful, she points out that she had always been interested in Catholicism’s portrayal of women. She said she was particularly struck at the contrast between Artemis, who always appears artistic and natural, and the Virgin Mary, who appears somber and suppressed.
 
Strong reactions emit from the audience the moment Keeney’s reading is over. Bibi Yusuf, a writer, and Emman Shehu, share their observation on mythology. According to them, mythology in Nigerian writing leaves much to be desire. Bibi, for one, described mythology as a foundation of indigenous narrated. Keeney in response, enjoined Nigerian writers to fully exploit the rich indigenous mythology at their disposal. Lamenting a near extinction of Nigerian tribal mythology, Shehu blamed the sociologists for this occurrence an argument objected to by Jeremy Weate of Next Newspaper, who said it was the duty of the writer to conduct his own research in the absence of adequate information.
 
ElNathan John, another writer made a different observation in line with the mythological content of  “Message from Ephesus”, pointing out this time, that he had reservations with the introductory lines of the poem, which to him were superfluous. Keeney in reaction said she intended the lines as a irony to what was to come later in the poem.  Ozioma Izuora and Joy Adam commended the guest poet for speaking strongly in favour of women and acknowledged her attention to little details.
 
 Attention to little details. That sounds very much like a “keen sense of observation”, the very words used by Chika Unigwe, the Belgium-based Nigerian writer, to describe Igoni Barrett’s collection of short stories, From Caves of Rotten Teeth – a collection from which Barrett himself read the stories, “Letters “ and “Pot Pourri” at the event, to the pleasure of a captivated audience.
 
 “Letters” is a brief story of Odion, an eighteen-year-old mama’s boy whose life is inexplicably tied to his mother’s perverse manipulation. His eighteenth birthday cements the psychological bondage after he reads the letters that she presents to him from his unknown father. After reading the letters Odion makes up his mind to join his father, but is afraid to tell his mother of his decision. It takes him a long time before he is finally able to tell her, and sure enough, when he does, she strings together a story to further secure the strings that hold him to her . “You will never be a man”, she spits at him with a concluding note. The story, as is a feature common to most of Barrett’s stories, ends in an open-ended way. It generates pity for Odion and revulsion at his mother. Whatever happened to Odion at the end, we will never know. We are left to make guesses. A participant at the event seems to speak the mind of the audience when he asks Barrett if Odion would have ever grown into a man had the story ended up a novel. The author desists from giving a direct answer to the question, but says that the best stories are better left open-ended and the conclusion is left to the reader’s imagination as a result. We have think further to see it seems.
 
The next story read by Barrett was “Pot Pourri”. It was told  in a similarly profound voice, in words that heightened the smallest of details and rowed us gently through a sea thick with vivid images and catchy descriptions. “Pot Pourri” is a story of Uju Ojinta, an immensely gluttonous woman who bumps into the scene of her husband cheating on her in the background of her favourite food programme. The story is humorous and vivid with pictures of food and its paraphernalia in every colour possible. The author probably does in an effort to effectively drive home Uju’s extreme preoccupation with food. From her favourite delicacy of fresh fish, to the intricacies of food preparations like heating palm oil, turning in chopped onions, crayfish, soupcon garlic, yam, and oh… the smell….We see the utensils laid out: steel cutlery, china jugs, spice bottles, sherry decanters and so on. It is simply a festival of images, all seen through the eyes of main character.
 
Perhaps, it is needed here to briefly state that the author, Adrian Igonibo Barrett, had a unique introduction to the world of writing. He was a final year student of Agriculture when he decided to quit school to become a writer. In the preface to From Caves of Rotten Teeth, Barrett says he wondered where the ‘need’ to write, to make a fool of himself come from. He strongly attributes this it seems, to a book he read while still a student of Agriculture, a fact he stated at the reading. This uncanny introduction to writing may have constituted a major influence to his ability, according to Kaine Agary,” to capture with enviable depth, the emotions and circumstances of his character.”
 
A brief reading of Senator Anthony Agbo’s poems by the poet himself was also featured during the event. The senator, who was scheduled to read at the May edition of the Guest Writer Forum alongside Unoma Azuah, but was unavoidably absent, thrilled the audience to readings of three of his poems: ‘The Majesty’, ‘American’ and ‘The Cry From the Heart’ from his collection, Adoration of the King. He explained that his poetry aimed at understanding the attributes of God, and tried to relate it to the African situation and humanity in general. ‘The Majesty’ is a reflection of God as the ultimate embodiment of all things. ‘America’ is a lament of the elements surrounding American’s power, while ‘Cry from the Heart’ is a sinner’s cry to God. Citing Christopher Okigbo and Wole Soyinka as his literary mentors, the senator said he was particularly drawn to their works because they posed different challenges in terms of comprehension.
The June Guest Writer Forum which enjoyed the support of the Nigerian High Commission in Canada and Canadian High commission in Nigerian, also featured an opening mini art exhibition of  work of Onyebe Ella, a widely-exhibited Abuja-based artist. Her exhibited works comprised a couple of designed pottery and paintings in mixed media. The works bore a variety of names, and represented different themes: pride of a woman, depicting the Fulani woman and her circle of life. Three wise men, a representation of the three major Nigerian ethnic groups, and issues like poverty and marriage, which affected them, and Aleku, a wooden depiction of an ancestral Idoma spirit as imagined by her, since women were forbidden to see them according to culture.
 
 Other highlights included cutting of two anniversary cakes, one in commemoration of AWF’s first anniversary on June 15, and the other, a birthday cake in honour of the Nigerian High commissioner to Canada, pro. Iyorwuese Higher.
 
 The president of AWF thereafter announced an endowment of  a National Poetry Prize by Senator Anthony Agbo, and the receipt of a grant from the United States Embassy for the third edition of the association’s International Journal of writing, criticism and Art- Cavalcade. He also announced that AWF would be accessible online in a short period of time.
 
Other highlights included AWF’s presentation of gifts to the guest writers, Prof Don Rubin, Keeney’s husband, and Christain DesRoches, political secretary of the High Commission of Canada in Nigeria.
          
Joy Idam, former assistant Secretary General, Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Abuja council, also presented Patricia Keeney and her husband Prof Rubin, with gifts in appreciation of their effort at encouraging Nigerian writing.
 
At the end of the day, a photo session capped the event which to all present, was worth remembering as an experience that would impact their writing skills in a long time to come. 
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Published in Leadership, Friday, July 3, 2009, p24