Coat of many colours: A review of Abayomi Abiru’s This City Knows My Name

This review is like a coat of many colours because the poet treats varieties of themes, such as: identity crisis, nostalgia, hope, hopelessness, emigration, grief, domestic violence, inequality, war and others. 

These themes put together from various aspects of live, put a rainbow to the entire collection and it is only fair to treat them randomly.

Looking at History Lessons, the fourteenth poem in the collection, Abiru re-awakens our consciousness to the theme of inequality. The first stanza historically alludes to the US Declaration of Independence, which in summary states that ‘all men are created equal’. 

However, the second stanza contradicts what the Declaration represents when the persona alludes again to Jim Crow (a racist white organisation that threatened and annihilated the lives of many black folks in America). The voice ended by literarily alluding to a line from George Orwell’s (originally named Arthur Eric Blair) critically acclaimed novel, Animal Farm: ‘In reality, / [some are more equal than others’]. 

Here, the poet suggests that inequality has eaten deep and the aftermaths of the Declaration are all history lessons which ‘they seem to forget.’

On A Ship Fleeing To Tarshish recounts the life of the persona, like the Biblical character, Jonah, who is supposed to be an evangelist but fled and later found grace — redeemed. Still of the world, the persona says that he loved ‘the wild herb- / the one called hemp’ and that nothing of God was his concern. But at the end, he testifies that he doesn’t do anything ‘…if it is not/in [H]is name…a man, led into temptation/and rescued by grace’. 

In short, the persona acknowledges God for restructuring his almost condemned life, which is a courageous thing to do, now adays.

Furthermore, Wilt takes a reader into the narrative of a man who struggled and struggled to make it in life but depression and vanity found him, even in a country with booming economy. Evoking the mood of pity like Authur Miller’s tragic protagonist in Death of a Salesman, it leaves one with the questions: Is there a God? Can one be that fated in life? Stanza five connotes that when things weren’t going fine, the narrator’s brother knelt and prayed, expecting a miracle. 

It worsens in the next, as ‘…tears and sweat and holy/water/flowed in harmony/at the feet of the altar’. Furthermore, the narrator becomes sarcastic as he tries ridiculing God as he says in the last two succeeding stanzas:

but the only miracle

we left with was:

 a boy started his day as a boy

but ended as a wilt in Spring

If you observe the stanzas above, you will also deduce that the narrator’s life was compared to a ‘withered’ being in Spring (a season when plants bloom). By extension, Abayomi Abiru rides with those who bustle in a time of plenty, yet reap nothing; thereby, cementing the theme of hopelessness.

An Art Of Flaw reverberates Negritude. The persona opens with an oxymoron, denoting his state of dilemma or complexity as regards his body being a ‘fine flaw’. He monologues that their bodies (particular about the colour of their skin) bear imperfection as well but one shouldn’t waste time trying to prove it because it takes time and because they frail. 

However, he testifies that ‘wrinkles are a/testament of grace and power.’ As a result, he wears his with pride because ‘it’s destined to/bear the galaxy’s beauty.’ In summary, the persona identifies with his colour and takes pride in it.

Finally, there is the theme of nostalgia. The poet discusses this theme in most of the poems in his collection. 

In The Language Of Rising, the persona uses contrast to show the difference between his new land and his original home land; where the latter bustles with sounds from the train, coop and factory but the former, ‘…unlike home, /only silence makes noise’. Of course, one can say this is paradoxical, as the silence troubles his soul and making him miss his original home.

All in all, Abayomi Abiru has set his mark in the literary world with this collection. He is a writer with many laurels to wear, starting with this coat of many colours.

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