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Author: mozimo AMATAREOTUBO amas
Posted to the web: 8/30/2006 6:30:41 PM

Book Title:                           Tears In a Basket

Author:                                               Sophia Obi

Publisher:                                            Kraft Books Ltd,

Tear of Publication:                            2006

Pagination:                           63 Pages

Reviewer:                        MOZIMO, AMATAREOTUBO

 email - amasmozimo@yahoo.co.uk; telephone +234 8066 00 1713

 

To delve into poetry is not a child’s play. Poetry speaks but not in the every day language we all know and understand. Armed with this fact, Sophia Obi’s anthology, Tears in a Basket is a daring attempt at bringing poetry home to everyone. Divided into two parts, her anthology portrays poems of hope and hopelessness, of disappointment and despair, of death the and dying; and poems of love of and life. While part one has thirty poems of which some are lamenting the exploitation of the Niger-Delta, others are about life’s uncertainty and frailty, and yet others are about love, despair and several others about death. Part 2 comprises fifteen poems of love, written in such a passionate and captivating manner that leaves one fathomed at the wealth of experience this she-griot must have garnered at the expense of chauvinist machismo.

 

Eight poems all together are about the dehumanizing conditions in the Niger-Delta of Nigeria. They lament the neglect of the people and environment while at the same time condoning the use of the oil wealth generated from this area in building the rest of the country especially the North:

 

                                    With the milk from her breast,

                                    She moulds dusty earth into mansions,

                                    While her children peep through tattered huts

                                                            (“Swamps….” 7-10)

                                    Bridges and mansions grow out of dusty lands

                                    While my children wallow

                                    In the crude mud Peculiar to my swamp

                                                     (“Oloibiri” 37-40)

 

In “Tomorrow’s Dedris”, she mourns the sad experiences of her marginalized people. In a lachrymose tone, she bewails this deprivation:

 

                                    Out in the fishing-ports, cities, deserts

                                    The infinite will of orphans

                                    Echoes in search of dispatched parents

                                    Among tomorrow’s debris

 

“Tears in a Basket” is a poem of despair as the gloomy picture painted by her imagery is lucid enough to compel the sympathy of the reader. The poem bemoans the sad situation of exploration and exploitation that have bedeviled the people of the Niger-Delta. It takes the form of the goose that lays the golden egg: with the constant refrain: ”We are sacrificial leaches / Waiting to be squashed.”

 

Her anthology also contains dirges and elegies. Poems such as “Riotous ghost”, “Gone too soon”, “I hate farewells” and “Consolation” are in this category. While the first bemoans the Ikeja bomb blast where thousands lost their Iives; the second is an elegy in remembrance of the poet’s father; the third laments the death of Harold Dappa-Biriye (an Izon icon); the fourth “Consolation” bemoans the neglect of a family by friends and foes after the death of the breadwinner.

 

Her poems about life are puzzling and mind provoking. They compel the reader to see life from a philosophical purview: with its frailty and paradoxes. In “What is life all about?” she is bemused after pondering on several options:

                                    Or,

                                    Maybe,

                                    Life is like a book

                                    Each day like a page

                                    Each hour like a paragraph

                                    Each minute like s statement

                                    Each second filled with a lesson

In “The potter”, the person leaves herself at the mercy of life to do what it desires!

                                    Knock, knock, potter

                                    I am the malleable clay in your hand,

                                    Magnificent, Moulder.

                                    Willingly, I succumb…(1-4)

“Seasons of life” and “Routine” are two poems in which the issue of change and continuity as forming part of the monotony of life are stressed. The former dances about with the rhythmic confluence of rain, storm, thunder and sunshine as they collide and interchange into different seasons thus underscoring the essence of change and choices in life, in the everyday routine of waking, working and waning after morning, noon and night overflow as necessary burdens of life.

 

Pockets of poems are about general human experiences. One of such is “Litmus Test” where the issue of money as a test of integrity is portrayed!

                                    Money

                                    Is

                                    A litmus test

                                    That discloses

                                    The true colour

                                    Of man’s integrity.

 

“Baby” treats the issue of naivety, while “Mama’s Winning colour” is a social critique condemning the corrupt leadership and the lack of basic amenities in Nigeria. “The Counsellor” shows us the contrast of the devil and his pranks. “Naked Heart” is a poem of forgiveness and the sure mercies of the abiding grace of God to love and receive. “Images” explores the inner recesses of one whom experiences in life have made bold to stand. “A tests of tomorrow” fights against reminiscence of evil that border the mind and in “Resolve” the persona confused about what the future holds, resolves to leave it in God’s hands, while being as truthful as she can.

 

This part one of the book also contains eight love poems that should have been taken to part two, which deals with love poems. “My Muse” is a love poem that portrays the issue of an unfaithful friend as a necessary evil. Though there is betrayal of trust, yet the lover can do little considering the fact that the better half is as her muse, her lifeline and her pathfinder.

 

“Reflections” rejoices over intuition that guides lovers into accepting each other without fear. “Irate needless” is a love poem of betrayal and the resolve of a hurt lover to fight back after accepting an insincere lover:

 

                                    I smile at my brave wish

To pluck the needless from my bleeding heart,

To pierce the bubbles

                                    Of his promise

 

In “Destiny”, the poet explores other options if she had not met her lover. “You can’t fool an old fool” is one of her best poems as it shows the feministic side of the poet. Here, she shows how bitter experiences have made the woman wax strong; strong enough to be assertive and to reject the man in his quest of fulfilling his lust:

                                    But hold your

                                    Stiffness, you treacherous fox

                                    Till I return from my vexation

                                    You know, you just can’t fool an old fool.

 

The universality of love is exposed in “Timeless clock”. “One Man, Two woman”’ explores the theme of abandonment as experienced by a betrayed woman who looks at her rival with disgust and mockery.

“Deadly pleasure” is a poem that exposes the dangers of illicit sex such as contracting STDs. Her love poems in part two of the book are very lucid and ecstatic. They unveil the raw desire of passion and sex between a woman and a man. They relish the euphoria of an atmosphere of amorous intercourse

In “Discovery channel”, she explores the excitement of her first kiss in glowing nostalgic reminiscence. “Night Time Robber” romanticises an amorous night of bliss and blues in sensuous words of delight:

                                    You crack and tear through

                                    The core of my womanhood

                                    With the fierce and urgent plunge

                                    Of your wakefulness.

This same theme is stressed in “This blue night”, “All of Nine months”, “Epiphany”, “Twas Nice” and other passionate love poems of hers.

 

Her love poems are not complete without her raising the issue of betrayal, and deceitfulness of men towards their female lovers. In several poems she portray men as liers, unfaithful, and opportunists who take advantage of the gullible nature of women to deceive them. In “Shylock” she asks:

                                    I am tempted to ask again

                                    Did you have to go, did you?  

                                    Now love is the wealthy shylock

                                    I harbour in my heart…

 

In “Pride of Barbados”, she expresses anguish after accepting her lover who had betrayed her. She writes:

                                    Yet I received him,

                                    Comforted him when he came crashing

                                    In the ashes of his folly

This distrust is also stressed in “whispers from the heart” as she refrains; “yet we say we each belong to another.” It is about two lovers who feel for each other yet are attached to other people.

 

Her love poems show a woman’s helplessness in love. Love is inevitable. It is a necessary desire for all women. Despite her frustrations, the woman harbours love for man and she is willing to give love a chance everytime.

 

Obi’s anthology is filled with associative imagery. Her language is coloured with images that evoke empathy, love and laughter and likeness. The fluidly with which her poetry flows is second to none as evigent from her use of free verses.

 

God poetry is all about the use of thought provoking and imaginative language. Obi’s use of the elements to complement her poetry is a commendable venture. In “Seasons of life” her use of sun, moon, morning, noon and night is a ready instant of this. This potpourri of colourful imagery adds to the height and exciting nature of her poems.

 

See how in a “swamps of our time” and “Tears in a Basket”, she makes use of a legend of African and riverine images that form the corpus of Niger Delta Literature. Her poems are replete with words as, ‘drumbeats’, ‘cock’, ‘naked dances’, ‘ancestors’, ‘grooves’, ‘ceremoniously’, ‘cobines’, ‘path’, ‘mother earth”, ‘muddy streams’, folkongs’, ‘fathered huts’, ‘swamps of time’, ‘ecosystems’, ‘et cetera, that comprise the gamut of African poetry.

 

Her poems are lucid and apt. They evoke laughter and love. Her elegies take you on a journey into oblivion thereby reviving the feeling of apathy and affection.

 

In spite of these, there are a few shortfalls in her poetry. Her use of punctuations leaves much to be desired. Most commas are not necessary. They impinge on the flow of lines when the poems are read. In ‘The wisdom of poverty’ her use of rhetorical questions is welcomed but where are the question marks in the last verses? No stylistic effect is achieved by omitting these!

 

By rule, every first letter in a line of poetry is capitalized except for some stylistic effects, which must concur with the poem’s theme. Several lines of different poems are not capitalized showing some laxity.

 

It is indeed appalling to note that the first quotation in part one is with a grammatical error of concord: “Along/the portals of my coast, the smoke and stench of oil crudely desecrates[sic] my marine reserves”. It should be ‘desecrate’ without an /s/ at the end. To make matter worse, this phrase is repeated in ‘Oloibiri’ (p13) and also on the blurb thereby making it a cliché.

 

“The wisdom of poverty” is one of her worse poems for it lacks cohesion. What is the relationship between ‘Life’ and ‘they’ in lines 1 and 2? ‘Life’ is single, ‘they’ is plural. Where are the rhetorical questions marks after using interrogations as ‘how’ ‘when’ and ‘can’? The lines are disjointed and uncoordinated.

 

In ‘Inflections’ what is ‘seine’? In ‘Destiny” there is no word like “Specie’ but “species”. In “Whispers from the heart’, the phrase “we each belong to another” is very awkward. How does ‘we’ and ‘each’ collocate? The foot note on Oloibiri in page 43 should have been on page 13 when Oloibiri was first mentioned

In “Riotous ghost” the first line “That chill[sic] night” should read: “That [chilled/chilly] night”. The use of ‘that’ suggests that the verb should be in past form or best still; the adjective ’chilly’ comes handy. The poem “Tears in a Basket” has an identify crisis. It started with ‘we’ then later to ‘1’ then  to we again. So, who is the persona? The ‘1’ that personalizes or the ‘we’ that generalizes? This fluctuating point of views impinges on the identity of the persona.  

 

The division of the poetry into parts does not reflect the poems contained in each part. Some poems, especially the ones on love and betrayal, should be in the second part. The quotation used in part one does not really reflect the theme of poems.

 

The glossy cover page is colorful and beautiful but the drawing of an eye, tear drops and a basket to fall in line with the title: “Tears in a Basket” is too ordinary and lacks imagination. An abstract drawing that is imagination and intellectual would have best complement the welter of beautiful poetry meant for natured minds in the book. After all, the in-depth of her poetry is not meant for kids.

 

Aside, from these errors; and aside from the fact that Dr, Gabriel Okara wrote the foreword; and aside from the fact that the book won the ANA Bayelsa (2006) poetry prize and aside from the other accolades of achievement of the writer, the anthology, Tears in a Basket is a commendable book of poetry that is ecstatic, apt, concise and enjoyable for everyone who desires poetry in his raw beauty complemented with a touch of marine coloured imagery.