Salutation to the Idiot

Abstract

Salutation to the Idiot Dike Okoro (bio) After Dani Alves, who picked up a banana thrown by a racist fan (Barcelona versus Villareal, 2014) To make the foul-mouthed soccerfan trapped in racist tiraderethink the stupidity in monkeychants, you picked up a bananathrown at your feet, peeled it openand took a bite, uninterestedin the petrified red-faced protesterhurling insults while youkicked the stationary ball,watched it fly away, beforerunning down the opposite endof the field like a sprinter reactingto the starter's gun. Your sudden grinwhile staring at the idiot, a toastrelegating monkey chants to trivialities. [End Page 37] Dike Okoro DIKE OKORO (PhD, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee) is a poet, literary critic, editor and scholar of African Diasporic literature. He was a finalist for the Cecile De Jongh Literary Award in 2017. He has published three volumes of poetry, including In the Company of the Muse, and edited several anthologies, including We Have Crossed Many Rivers: New Poetry from Africa, which was shortlisted by humanrightscareers.com UK as one of "5 Vocal Human Rights Poetry Books Inspiring Change." A Collection of Okoro's essays on Mazisi Kunene's oeuvre (South Africa's first poet laureate) will be published by Routledge Publishing/Taylor & Francis, UK, in 2023. Copyright © 2022 Johns Hopkins University Press