JOE'S COLLECTANEA

Omeke, a Nigerian writer, offers a philosophical book of poems.

The author explores culture, spirituality, and emotion in this poetry collection. He opens with “Danilo the Farm Boy,” a pastoral poem about a lad tasked with everything from consoling mules and cleaning up after cows to plowing fields and scattering seeds. In “A Coloured Dream,” the speaker must reconcile himself to living in a land whose people persecuted his ancestors; ultimately, he adopts their capitalist ways, deciding that “life is a dish best served rich.” The poet honors the strength of migrants and their harrowing journeys in “Flies of Wilderness.” In a direct address to the tobacco plant (“Grass of our Time”), a conflicted speaker observes, “Look at how fragile you are, / With a twist I can break you, yet you control my life.” Omeke struggles with the nature of love in one poem and applauds the utility of composure in another. The author recalls the Covid-19 pandemic (“The first time we’d saved the world by staying at home and watching television every day”), concluding that “it has helped us to realise that the things we fight for or desire badly do not have as many values as they seem” (“Plague in Our Waves”). Enticed by credit cards, a speaker in “Credit Score” contemplates the juxtaposition of “the feeling of buying all I can, / Until the end of the month when the bill comes in.”

Omeke has a knack for sensory detail; each scene evokes the senses, from the “poo marshes” and “urine smells” of a farm (“Danilo the Farm Boy”) to a lover “sweet as a mild croissant crested with chocolate” with nails “finely maintained as the talon of a hawk” (“Romance in Poetry”). The poet compassionately captures the plight of migrants, writing of those “weary souls, a desperate flight, their hearts aflame, / seeking a glimmer of light. / In lands unknown, they forge a path anew, / leaving behind what once they knew” (“Flies of Wilderness”). He also infuses his writing with hope; in “Haunted Shadow,” he advises, “If the dreams get shattered, / Rearrange them and do not cry.” At times, the author appears to have a tenuous grasp of the English language—the poems can read nonsensically with lines such as, “I heard when your love profuse on a flower, you make it grow into a garden, / And when it likes a flower, you pluck it for your piggy self” (“Long Lost Love”). Other verses are coherent but downright silly, such as the humble boast in “A Coloured Dream”: “You know it is armani, yes, I spent my money.” The heavy-handed religiosity in lines such as “My soul pants for you Lord, and my flesh longs for you” (“My Body My Mind”) may turn off non-religious readers. Occasionally, the author gets preachy, making observations such as “No one alive can take a mother’s place, even in her grave, / It is a shame that we fail to spend time with them as we age” (Daily Dose of a Mother’s Influence”).

A mixed bag of musings from a spirited poet.