Book: Softlie
Author: Kayode Taiwo Olla
Reviewer: Rahaman
Abiola Toheeb
Year Published: 2014
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| front & back page of Softlie |
Prior to this time has been
a little shift of interest in the dimension of Nigerian poetry owned to the new
wave of consciousness and unquenchable flame of epochal quest for new phase of
poetry, chiefly love poetry in lieu of politically cantered ones. In relation
to this awareness, contemporary writers have taken on the mantle and assumed
this task, thereafter creating a space for love poetry in their collection,
despite the fact that they are still aware of the political confusion, shipwreck
and imbalance, economic dire and melt-down, moral decadence, tyrannical display
of power-drunkenness by political post-bearers, and most importantly, the
gladiatorial rancour and horn-knot among the over-zealous elder statesmen,
especially in almost parts of Africa.
Without any scintilla of
doubt, this conscious responsibility has breathed life to the voices of young
owlets like Kayode Taiwo Olla who are mindful of the fact that the common men like them need not to always find their solace only at the armpit
of angry and revolutionary poetry projected due to the acute leadership failure
in Africa- what young poets like Tosin Gbogi Akeem Lasisi, and others of this ideology
have come to preach against having been indoctrinated into the poetic revolutionary spirit led by Niyi
Osundare, Odia Ofeimum, and Franz Aig-Imoukhuede and other poets whose voices echoed
to kick-out the post-colonial dilemma and contemporary banes. But rather they
embark on new dimension of poetry thematized on other aspects of life and
necessitating factors for human succour and survival.
Pablo Neruda was right when he said: “Of
all fire, love is the only inexhaustible one. . love is a voyage with water and a star in
drowning air and squalls of precipitate brain; love is a war of lights in the
lightning flashes, two bodies blasted in a single burst of honey .” Love, considering it from the real sense is
the reason why we tend to live together as husbands and wives, brothers and
sisters, families and friends. Love is the unifying factor that depicts how
passionate God is towards His creatures on earth; it’s the necessitating factor
for universe to hold and man to exist in it. Love is the reason why Providence
had it, from the pedigree that the first man shouldn’t have been living alone
without a partner who in him he would find solace. I think this is the bone behind Kayode Olla’s
poetry collection of poems, Softlie.
***You Can Also Read Review of Tosin Gbogi's the tongues of a shattered s-k-y****
***You Can Also Read Review of Tosin Gbogi's the tongues of a shattered s-k-y****
Soflie is a poetry collection of fifty-five pages that reminds
us of the universal realities by taking us on a brief escapade into the
mystical realm of love. The collection is a typical quintessence of unabated
cravenness and wishes of man; an harbinger that opens us to the collective
responsibility on the need to stand resilient against the individualistic
ideology of the modern Age which has metamorphosed and transfigured us into
clueless entities. No wonder Gbemisola
Adeoti, a renowned prolific award winning poet of the widely-endorsed
collection of poetry, Naked Sole
and a pedagogue describes it as a collection which ‘images evoke
cross-cultural experience of people in the past and the contemporary Africa.
This enables the poet to consciously interject what seems to be private with
people and political . . .’
When
Poet falls
In love. . .
For someone who has read
the tragic play of William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, will
never doubt the fact that love is more driven than the brief madness of
over-drunkenness and excessive alcoholic in-take. What does it take to be a
lover? Why do we fall in love? Are madmen surveying the boulevards better than
a lover overwhelmingly propelled by the beauty of a ripe virgin lady delivering
the message of Cupid to the world? I
believe these are the verisimilitudes of questions Soflie has come to fill their vacuum
with copious rejoinders. The book is a
fascinating collection of love poems spun into storyline with memories ranging
from the lovers’ first sight till the present blissful moment of their platonic
love.
The poet has successfully
broken the jawbone of conundrum by easily ‘blending poetic with narrative and
melodic with the dramatic- Aremu and Arewa.’ Starting from the first poem till
the last there is subtle arrangement of different subject matters paramount to
our daily living and existence, beautifully expressed in diction so subtle,
sublime and simple that it reaches and suits the mind of common man.
Considering the book from the social view, the book merges love with modern
reality common among today’s youths, and the poem ‘If It Is Love’ is a
close portrait of this reality.
Softlie respectively talks on
the general truth and cultural reality by extending its wing across the issues
of sexual life and matrimonial problems. The poet tries to talk on the general
needs for everyman to love and to be loved no matter the odds and exceptions.
He says:
The
hardest, stoniest heat
Has
a soft spot
The
most stoic body
Inwardly
yearns for a loving caress
Men’s
deepest wish
Men’s
deepest longing
Men’s
deepest desire
Is
not power or prestige-
I
have seen it is to feel loved
We
all want it badly!
(We
all want it – pg 14)
Another interesting point
is how cultural reality is manifested in the poetry through its celebration of
typical African traditional marriage. This is due to the fact that the poet is
quiet aware of the richness and beauty of African culture, having hailed from
the black nation where matrimonial rites are incumbent upon the bridegrooms. As
decreed by the customs, a bridegroom is expected to observe some marriage rites
and sacramental rights before the nuptial tie will be knotted. The poet writes:
Can I find a
good expression
For your lovely
good looks Arewa?
Ah take me to
know your mama
Take me to know
your people
They in whose
eyes you matured. . .
A bag of beads,
a pot of kola nut
A gourd of palm
wine, a keg of palm oil
(Love Song- pg 24-25)
Similarly, the poetry is a
lamentation of chronic malady and epidemic syndrome daily plaguing the society
where the poet hails from. Without any doubt, Softlie is a glaring epiphany of different ironies that are
webbed with the destiny of human being fighting for survival like candle in the
wind, especially in Africa where many are being mesmerized by western viruses
that have taken on many colourations. Subconsciously, the poet expresses
different ironic parts of human existence ranging from the world of opulence to
that of poverty; from political reality to social truth; from cultural view to
moral decadence, e.t.c. the poet says:
The beggar sleep
in cold night, unsheathed
The rich man
suffers from insomnia in bed
* * *
The adolescent
virgin is tired of keeping herself:
The womanizing
guy is wishing to marry a virgin. . .
Some people
rape, some people eagerly open laps-
And they forget
there’s always an ‘after waiting. . .
Or pilling!
(Life of Ironies- page 48)
The fact that the book
runs from nuptial knot to general barrier plaguing modern marriage,
shipwrecking some blissful homes and rendering the children of estranged
couples clueless at the cross-road shouldn’t be marginalized. Softlie gives us a clear portrait of
the afore-mentioned problems and how the affected children are deprived of
parental affection, leading to psychological imbalance and bizarre performance
of many of these children in school perhaps.
It reads thus:
I played and
played in your lap
Till I slept off
and still dreamt about you
* * *
I would wake up
one day
And won’t see
you no more
Oh daddy come
back!
Couldn’t guess
why you and mummy had to part
Your baby is
crying!
Oh daddy why not
coming back today?
(Love letter of a broken-hearted kid- pg61)
A critical assessment and
in-depth evaluation of the book from the diction to thematic pre-occupation
prove it worthy of kudos- what modern world wants. There is no disputation that
the collection of poetry turns words to music, owing to its rhythmical
employment of words in uncomplicated way that provokes emotion from the mind of
common man. I am also keenly interested on the philosophically embellished
axiom and sayings denoting the real self of man and the reality of his world
which he can’t afford to jettison. The
poem ‘There are No More Words’ and ‘Life of Ironies’ are close
portraits of this philosophical view. The poem reads:
Sorrow is not at
its depth
When it can just
be expressed
With tears
Joy is not at
its height
When it can only
be expressed
With laughter
Love is not at its best
When it can still be expressed in
In words. . .
(There are no more words –pg32)
However, despite the poetry deep in music and better
understood in performance, I found the diction of the collection too simple.
The exploitation of language in poetry is usually more intense, frequent, and
more discriminate than we have in other forms of literature. Poetry shouldn’t
be what you read at a sit and the meaning comes with ease. This is the reason
why literary scholars like Edgar Allan Poe and William Wordsworth are of the
opinion that poetry and its language should be allusive, concentrated, embellished, heightened, imagistic,
metaphorical, paradoxical, suggestive, symbolic and polyvalent to the depth so
as capture the complexity and full panoply of their thoughts and feelings.
The prose-like style-switch technique employed by the poet makes the book more
mind-numbing and monotonous at a point.
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