Time is motile; it is irreverently so. Man, in a bid to undo, in his best way, this attribute of time, came up with an invention that stills it. Hence, in as many clicks and flashes as possible, time is shamed as it stays frozen in our hands. Time could be regarded as the clit or un-clit of our emotions. It could be pleasure-giving. Or otherwise, hence the necessity of the coinage, ‘un-clit’. Whichever way it goes, we cannot but stroke it to a climax when we feel like doing so. But that is only when we have access to that sleek, long-gone phenomenon; when it has been embalmed on some card, album or storage device.
Photographs remind me of my wisdom,
and most times, my foolishness. It’s the age of selfies and photographs
sometimes remind me of my solitude - maybe narcissism is a better choice - as
well as my ability to fit into groups. Photographs remind me of frowns, smiles
and tears that may not be seen again. They often make one conscious of the
nudity and arbitrariness around. What is Kim Kardashian’s nude without a
camera?
Poetry performs almost the same
functions, for me. The words of the poet are the clicks of the camera. They are
more. More than a refrigerator for time. They are beyond a mortuary for that
motile, ‘long-gone phenomenon’: time. Poetry, because of its devotion to
imagination - unlike photography which gives us what used to be and is - creates
its own space and time. Poetry is such a vast cosmos and the work of the
poet, huge. You should read Emmanuel Iduma’s preface to Dami Ajayi’s chapbook, Daybreak and other Poems as well as Umar
Sidi’s The Poet of Sand.
The interactions of the written word
and stilled time have been explored in the digital age and the literature of
the age. Both have been channelled into the pursuit of similar courses. This
line of thought takes me back to Between Art and me, a piece on the interaction of
different art forms and the significance such mergers birth. In the case of Sandstorms in June, both offer a memento,
a generation’s. It’s a memento capable of contributing in its little way to the
traditional publishing versus internet literature discourse. In terms of
production, Sandstorms in June identifies
with the novel of the two though, while the reader may choose to shred the
collection of its virtual-ness by not reading on a screen but by printing it
out.
Night time
on the campus was usually quiet, but as she approached the major lecture halls,
she heard, faintly, the praying voices of students. The praying voices came, no
doubt, from the Sports Complex – almost all parts of the complex were being
used as prayer grounds. Not even the main football field was spared. She
imagined being in a prayer ground – would she kneel or lie down, or maybe
stand? Being a Sunday-only Christian, her prayers were restricted to silent
mutters she often felt were not fervent enough (135).
These
lines from Dami Ajayi’s Clinical Blues
say nothing different from the above:
Wee
hours in Ife,
Secluded
in the Geology wing of White House,
My
head nestled on Bailey's surgical account,
Neurons
swirling with stuff, symptoms and
signs,
My
mind is tucked in the recent past,
Bailey's
on the rock and the thrusting
Tunes
of New Buka, a few paces and hours away.
…
The
soft flap of a Bailey and Love page
Slow
dancing to August's gust or Damian Marley's
Patience
is reminiscent of knocking Mercy's door
At
Uncovered Pavilion.
masu pri ka ta ska ba ba
Who
is dancing on this tapestry of words
That
the wind lifts for my arousal? (62)
This
stanza from Tobi Adebowale’s ‘Flock of Tongues’ in Sandstorms further reflects the intertextuality that the quotes
above invoke:
An infantry of saved souls file out,
Hewing and mowing the enemy,
Undulating arms and a staccato of voices;
I think of the squash duel near IGI,
I turn, feeling a riot within;
I sense I must leave to well up (29).
The
uniqueness of Sandstorms is in its
apt representation of the Ife reality. Ife is a world of its own: its wars and
victories, its love and trysts, its deaths too. Its aluta consciousness and the faults therein.
Its strength too. Hence, we find each of the six poets addressing whichever of
the Ife realities that catches his attention.
Damilola
Yakubu’s ‘We Do Give a Fuck’ is one of my favourites. It beams a poetic light
on how death is taken in Sandstorm’s
setting. It reminds me of Vero’, a friend I lost
a year ago and the power of death to unite the living.
Death is
here, everywhere
Regardless
of what our mantra is,
We do give
a fuck.
I hear:
Wole ran
amok before his God,
Yet Ara
never came back.
A car’s
tire hit Tayo into oblivion.
Dipo made
poison his friend.
A friend of
a friend
Of a friend
died.
Our candles
are not for reading alone (77).
Victor
Olusanya’s ‘Aluta Market’ is another reminder of the power death wields over
the animate and inanimate. Aluta Market used to be like the university
community’s mammy market. For no defined reason, it’s now like a wasteland and
has been taken over by nature’s emissaries: overgrown bushes. Close to Aluta
Market is the school’s nightly love market, the one no Ife student can deny
ever patronising. Here is what I mean: when you don’t take part in the trysts
of Anglo Moz, you either feed on the sights they offer or be engaged in a
conversation about the going on at the location. Sandstorms would have been incomplete without referencing this
location. Gbolahan Badmus’ ‘September Rush’ and Victor Olusanya’s ‘Anglo Moz’
are apt renderings of the location. Samsudeen Alabi’s ‘Moremi and the Sojourn
of Hands’ and Tomiwa Ilori’s ‘The Pit’ bare the intricacies of sex, maybe lust
too.
The
complexities that surround the Ife reality may not be understood until one sets
one’s feet into the vast murk that they are. The beauty that lies in setting
one’s feet in that murk is in the beauty that comes out of it. Contradictory? Such
is Ife. Life is not unlike that too. Going through Ife is like a sandstorm, one
that leaves not just its good marks on you. There are scars too. Whichever, all
are mementos.
The voices
that echo in the pages of Sandstorms are
fresh and real, very real.
***
Download Sandstorms in June HERE
***
Download Sandstorms in June HERE
