Not my Business
Niyi Osundare
With a partner, think and talk about the following
situations. Take notes on what you say and be prepared
to report back to the group.
A friend of yours gets in a fight.
Do you help him/her?
Do you walk away?
Why?
You know a pupil in your form is
being bullied by another pupil.
People in other countries are
starving to death.
Do you ignore it?
Do you report it?
Do you ignore it?
Why?
Do you give money to help?
Why?
Now watch the video
Niyi Osundare
• Nigerian poet and Professor of English at Ibadan University
• Not My Business was first published in a newspaper, The Sunday Tribune
• Osundare believes the press has enormous potential for reaching people
• In 1990 this poem was published in a collection of poems called Songs of the
Seasons
• The idea of song is central to all the poems in this collection and to ‘ a country
where every significant event is celebrated in song, drum and dance’
I wanted to capture the
significant happenings
of our time in a tune
that is simple,
accessible, topical,
relevant and artistically
pleasing.
Listen to the poem again
Akanni, Danladi, Chinwe: African names
Yam: a tropical, edible root crop – like a sweet
potato
What do the first four lines of stanzas 1 to 3 tell you about:
• the things that happen to people the speaker knows
• the way the speaker feels about these things?
Who do you think the ‘they’ referred to in lines 1 and 8 might
be?
What do the last three lines of stanzas 1 to 3 tell you about how the
speaker chooses to react to these things?
What happens in the last stanza?
How do you think the speaker feels now?
In what ways is Not My Business:
• about the lives of ordinary people
• like a song? (Think about the features of a song, such as
verse, chorus, rhythm and so on.)
What ‘significant happenings’ does Niyi Osundare portray
in Not my Business?
The focus of the poem keeps shifting from the speaker to what is happening
around him or her. Copy out and complete the following chart to show how the
focus shifts.
Lines
Focus
Lines
1-4
What ‘they’ did to
Akanni
15-18
5-7
19-21
8-11
22-24
12-14
25-26
Focus
Look closely at the first three stanzas of Not my Business
• What is unusual about the way they are set out on the page?
• Why do you think the poet chose to set them out in this way?
• What is the effect of the repetition of lines 5-7?
• What is different about the form of the final stanza of the poem?
Why might the poet have chosen to make it different?
Think about the words the poet uses and how they are placed together. Copy and complete
the following chart, making notes on:
• what is unusual about the images
• what the words suggest to you
The images
Notes on the images
‘Beat him like soft clay’ (2)
Violent image – simile, ‘like clay’, creates picture of
how they beat him – ‘soft’ suggests he was
physically broken but also mentally – no longer a
hard man
‘Stuffed him down the belly
Of a waiting jeep’ (3-4)
‘my savouring mouth’ (7)
‘Booted the whole house awake’ (9)
‘a lengthy absence’ (11)
‘No query, no warning, no probe’
(17)
‘one neat sack for a stainless record’
(18)
‘ A knock on the door froze my
hungry hand’ (24)
‘my bewildered lawn’ (25)
‘waiting in its usual silence’ (26)
What kind of person is the speaker? Brainstorm your ideas:
What you learn about
him/her
What you think about
him/her
By naming Akanni, Danladi and Chinwe, the poet
suggests that the speaker knows them. Is it worse that
the speaker keeps silent even when he/she knows the
people who are hurt?
Osundare believes that for poetry to be effective people
need to be able to recognise themselves in the poems.
Think back to the situations you discussed at the
beginning of the lesson before you read the poem.
In what way could they be linked with the poem?
Can you see yourself in the poem?
When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I
was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics
I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned.
And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists,
I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned.
Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church – and
there was nobody left to be concerned.
Pastor Martin Niemoller, a well-known antiNazi activist
The state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the
world. But if the world as a community focused on it,
we could heal it … And if we don’t, it will become
deeper and angrier … When an African child dies every
three seconds, the developed world has a clear duty to
act – no responsible leader can turn their back on
Africa.
Tony Blair, British Prime Minister
If something bad
is happening,
when should you
ignore it and
when should you
do something
about it?