[Book Review] Hoping for the dawn of day: A stroll into Deji Ajibade’s ‘Sometimes I wish it could always be day’

Have you ever asked yourself why the night is long? Sometimes we call it ‘long night’ which implies that the night is longer than the day.

We lay down in our bed, perhaps, with forlorn faces to the roof of our homes, wishing for day to show its face. Well, it is not the literal meaning but the figurative…that Deji Ajibade brings to us in his collection.

Hope weighs a ton. Sometimes, putting hope in the future and in a country like Nigeria is a fallacy. Nigerians are alienated in a ‘county’ which is supposed to be a country. It is to this reason that hope sits tall as a subject matter. Written like a narrative, ‘Children of Dust and Dirt (Black)’gives power to young blacks whose bright future have been substituted with dirt.

They should ‘rise and face the East [where the sun, standing for hope, rises from]; see the sun smiling on you…’. Also, ‘Here, Hope Will Not Die!’ preaches the same. The persona (more than one), known by the plural marker ‘we’ connotes a struggle for survival.

They wish their pain would reach God but compares their wish to ‘wingless birds’, hence, continue to reap nothing. However, the second, third and fourth stanzas come with a hopeful tone that as they wake each day, they will hold to hope and continue to work irrespective of the usual outcome.

Have you read the latest happening in Kentucky? Flood as never seen came to visit and it may come with more extended members. Also, the doors of hell have been opened to Europe and the inhabitants crave for the summit of the north pole. In simpleton, there is climate change and the poet cloaks this theme in a beautiful manner.

Still on climate change, Ajibade praises man in transforming the earth. He wonders how dense forests become cities and estates in ‘Magic of Transformation’. However, he says that in man’s expansion, man violates nature:

His factories set the sun on fire…

And now, the heat wave is killing,/

In the second stanza, the poet proffers solution to the problems of climate change. For instance, he wishes for waste to be recycled ‘instead of being dumped/in our oceans’. This line brings to me the memory of growing up, when the streets and gutters during heavy rainfall were passages for our refuse. And God help us, the rain should stop abruptly, we will find heaps of dirts as bumps on the road as sentries, guarding nothing but metamorphosing to pollutants for inhabitants and passers-by. The poet also wishes man to care for trees. Lastly, I disagree with his last stanza, suggesting we save the world ‘before we become casualties/of our own deeds.’ Why do I disagree? It is because we are already casualties.

 The last subject matter I will be looking into is rest. Here, the Renaissance Poet, George Herbert would have been trilled, reading this collection side by side his poem (‘The Pulley’) if he were still alive. In the twelfth poem, ‘There Are Nights’, the persona laments on how his thoughts, due to loneliness breeds restlessness. This restlessness could make one commit suicide. So, he prays that if God be in heaven, He should ‘sail me in peace.’ How euphemistic! Notwithstanding, the poet could be saying that the best form of having rest in a world like this, is in death.

 In conclusion, Deji Ajibade is a contemporary poet who doesn’t just sing but advises to his songs. Therefore, my earnest prayer is we be not hearers only but doers of his very salient songs. And that no matter how hard the earth may seem, we should continue to sow, for ‘the [e]arth is your victory field.’

YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

How Workplace Sexual Harassment Forces Many Out Of Their Dream Jobs

Despite several laws prohibiting sexual harassment in Nigeria, many victims are forced to quit their dream jobs while others suffer depression as a result of unsolicited sexual advances from colleagues. FAITH ADEOYE reports.

If you want to keep your job and excel in your career, you need to do as I say,” Janet Abegunde’s boss said to her one fateful day. Miss Abegunde, a 24-year-old accountant who had just gotten her first job in one of the new generation banks, said she fell into depression after her boss sexually harassed her.

ALSO READ FROM  NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

• Hoodlums Attack Lagos Governor’s Press Crew Bus In Tinubu’s Convoy, Two Injured
• [BREAKING] #EkitiDecides2022: INEC Declares APC’s Biodun Oyebanji Winner Of Guber Poll

Top 10 Business Ideas In Nigeria You Can Start With 100,000 Naira

2023: Kwankwaso Will Not Be Deputy To Obi —NNPP