Title: A god in a Human Body
Genre: Poetry (a collection)
Author: Tolu’ A. Akinyemi
Publisher: The Roaring Lion Newcastle LTD
Reviewer: Afer Ventus
Year of Publication: 2022
I for one would have loved to review, randomly, some poems in this collection based on my list of preference. But it goes beyond just me. The real deal should be me, recapitulating the poet’s sole aim (probably; which is making his messages decrypted to the masses) for change or knowledge. Therefore, the following variables: patriarchy, shades of love and words will be analyzed.
Patriarchy still shrills to our discomfort. And with a tone of anger, the poet-persona sounds out a warning to the perpetrators of patriarchy in Father of a Queen. He describes his daughter as against the premise of being a second fiddle (which, arguably, most African women are victims to); as ‘a trailblazer charting her own path.’ The tone of the poem becomes more heightened in the second stanza when he puts: ‘My daughter was not born to be a doormat.
Engrave these words on your patriarchal heart.’ The most interesting feat is how the poet-persona uses pun to defamiliarize a popular feminine concept in stanza three. For instance, the words ‘sucked’, ‘beyond’ and ‘behind’ were played on to mean sex, breasts and buttocks respectively. In addition, Accidental Feminist serves as a kind of sequel to Father of a Queen.
Using the mood of certainty, the poet-persona informs the world of what his daughter shall be. She ‘…is the muse/ to rain bullets of fury on patriarchal voices.’ And ‘…shall cower to/ no one’, because she is a shero. Seeing the craftmanship imbued with love, his daughter would have no choice than to salute this someday. Notwithstanding, Akinyemi wishes not just his daughter but the girl-child to be their own path-finders.
There are many shades of love. Near Death pictures how the persona, narrating his experience on fake love that almost led to his death, such as ‘[D] riving a speeding car into a/ brick wall.’
The next stanza plays with words too, supporting the fact that it was a near death experience. However, the bottom line is in the last two lines of stanza three: ‘Father says intuition is a virtue/ My spirit pricks me—that discernment is a gift.’ In other words, the persona says that just knowing (intuition)…is a virtue but the ability to differentiate (i.e., discernment) true love from a disguised one, is more (a gift). More, Shade of Love could be saying that the kind of love people now practice could be tantamount to the end as stated in the Bible, since it is now degenerated.
Aside from what words can do, the poet stylishly creates something beyond. He could be saying that people (represented by ‘birds’) no longer want dialogue but have resorted to using weapons, defiling a fair battle (‘the old order’). Just not far away, Toxic, in the last stanza tells us that: ‘Tantrums are splitting closed wounds, / stinging fresh scars [and] The hail of words is drowning.’ Here, Tolu Akinyemi recognizes the power of words, which can be dangerous.
To add to the sweetness of this text, it pleases me to say that my favourite poem is Whore-ship. This is a poem which preaches against prostitution that ‘would have no winners.’ This is perhaps, because not just the women involved may be affected but the men…. At the end, Akinyemi admonishes us to take to our heels ‘from this woke generation/ before your spirit/ becomes a casualty.
In conclusion, Tolu’ Akinyemi is indeed a weaver bird. He has woven patriarchy… and many other ideas like divinity, gender, the immortality of the spirit, gratitude e.t.c. to creating beauty in a declining moral world.