By Dumbiri Frank EBOH
There has always been this argument between perfectionists and their opponents as to whether the world would be a better place if everything were just perfect. While the former feel the world would be a haven in this utopian state, the latter contend that oppositions are what actually provide the rhythms that help to spice up a process. The opponents claim that the real worth of light would not be fully appreciated if there were no darkness. One may liken this rhythm to the pumping in and out of blood through veins and arteries in the body, which ensures that human life goes on.
In Heart Songs, the award-winning collection of poems by Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, the issue is taken up into a higher realm of understanding. The collection could be likened to a musical instrumental with various strings that tug on sensitive issues that affect our heart. The tune you get – whether sad or joyful or otherwise – may well depend on the particular string you pick or pull. Depend on the particular string you
For instance, the first section of the collection is something you may safely subtitle “Victims upon Victims” even though its title really is Satirical Tunes. This is in view of the gruesome images and sad emotions which the poems that make up the collection evoke in the reader. Poems such as ‘Homeless’, ‘The Ism Of Race’, ‘Fallen Tyrant’, or ‘Victims of Our War’ are a collective sad commentary on our socio-political realities, not just as a nation but as a rapidly globalizing village of different races. While acknowledging that the victims of these short-comings are ordinary men and women who fall as unfortunate prey, the poet wasted no time in pointing the finger of blame on the real culprits:
How many war mongers pause to think of the tragedy
Their actions spawn
Like a pond full of tadpoles?
How many warlords worry about the bloodbath…
The next section is a string that tugs at an entirely different portion of our heart. As the title, “Praise Songs: Celebrating Lives”, suggests, the section is made up of ballads rendered in free verse and dedicated to some units of humanity whose images touch the soft spot of the human mind. The praise song has always been the African or traditional form of expressing emotion through poetry, so it is not a surprise that the poet should adopt this form of celebration.
The title of the third section looks rather deceptive. “Njakiri: Songs in Pidgin” would conjure up an image humour and comic elements intended to lighten the tense emotion occasioned by the first two sections. But alas! This is not the case. True, the language deployed – Pidgin English – is comical, but the emotional purgation earlier expected may not be there after all. It is a mastery of the art which only great writers like Akachi Ezeigbo can effectively deploy to hold down an audience with humour while actually addressing serious matters bothering the society.
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| Prof Akachi Ezigbo: Author of Heart Songs |
In this section are poems like ‘Cultism’, ‘Nudity’, ‘Monkey Dey Work Baboon Dey Chop’, ‘Tornado Jam London’, ‘Cancer’, ‘Suffer Head Immigrate’, ‘Sex Machine’, etc. Perhaps the message to take home here is that of the futility of materialistic cravings – which, to a large extent, is the root cause of most social ills:
As man live na so man dey die
Big man, small man death dey wait for am.
The next three sections – “Gendered Musing”, “Love Songs”, and “Random Songs” – touch on the various aspects of human existence that provoke emotional appellations. While “Gendered Musings” takes a new approach towards the male-female bilateral foundation of nature, “Love Songs” takes a deep look into the intricate feelings that accompany love and other such bonding, and “Random Songs” is a harvest of songs dedicated to a variety of issues and themes. In a way, “Random Songs” seems to be a poetic enquiry into the diversity that makes up the human psychology. From the sublime ‘Unresolved Question’ to the mundane ‘Lagos Slum’, this interesting section comprises themes that are wide and varied.
The last two sections that bring the collection to a close are titled “Memorial Songs” and “Songs for Women”. “Memorial Songs” is a compilation of elegies and eulogies for some departed heroes that cut across different sections of the society. There are echoes of Bola Ige, Murtala Mohammed and Ezenwa-Ohaeto, the late poet.
Poems or sections that come last in a collection are most times strategically placed for prominence because they remain with the reader long after he/she has dropped the book. So, it is not surprising that the poet places the section dedicated to her own sex in this vantage position. In this last section, “Songs for Women”, pathetic themes affecting women are explored. However, there is an ‘Ode To The Successful Woman Writer’.
From the foregoing, it is obvious that Heart Songs is a collection that explores humanity itself from a variety of periscopes. It is not a surprise that the collection won the 2009 ANA/Cadbury Prize for Poetry.
Not only does the collection explore these diverse themes, the poems themselves are cast in free verse rendered in simple-diction-in-simple-language style. The merit of this is that it categorizes the collection into what is known in poetry parlance as “popular poetry” – a category which even those not versed in poetry can read, experience, and enjoy.
This is one collection that will certainly find its feet in the clustered poetry world and may end up immortalizing the poet. It’s just a matter of time.
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