Poetic moments with human nature

A review of Mulikat Onipede Lawal’s Extraordinary Moments by Folorunsho Moshood.

William Wordsworth is one of the famous nature and romantic poets of the past. In some of his works, he views nature and human beings as complimentary elements of a sum of a whole, recognizing that humans are a sum of nature – after all, human beings are made from dust, and to dust they must return. Other poets employ many ways whenever they want to communicate ideas, information and expression of feelings to their audience. This has made the poets to use the natural things and imagery that human beings can relate with so that they can make these poems understandable. Thus, the concept of nature in poetry is to offer a liberation from so many obscure and esoteric conceptual frameworks which often reduce poetry to a mere academic exercise.

Life is poetry; poetry is life, and will be lively when the poet uses nature to drive home ideas and messages. In this collection entitled ‘Extraordinary Moments’ written by Mulikat Lawal, the poet follows the footsteps of the past romantic and nature poets, who successfully and masterfully connected humanity and spirituality with nature. This 2021 publication of OAK Initiative, the publishing arm of OAK Foundation, a charity organisation aimed at supporting indigent students, widows and the fatherless in Africa, offers the reader 50 poems that plumb the depths of human nature through its dreams, fond memories, feelings and behaviours.

Through this collection, from ‘Sunset and Dawn’ to ‘A Hero?’, Mulikat Lawal presents her poetic voice to the themes of ‘Nature’, ‘Childhood’, ‘Dream’, ‘Vision’ and ‘Spirituality’. The 50 poems, which are extraordinarily powerful and irresistibly beautiful,are as follows,Sunset and Dawn; Thunder and Rain;  Misery; Hope Comes; Being Alive; Extraordinary Moments; The Miraculous; City Life; Success; Womb of Victory; Rhythms Melodies, and; Your Voice; Music Motion;  Songs of Birds; I Shall Raise My Voice; A Child at Heart; Open Your Eyes; The Learner; The Pool of Wisdom; Humanity; Money; Work and Rest; Holidays; Achievement; Recess; Ghosts or Angels; Keep the Faith; What I Saw; Fire in Your Soul; Ambition; Devil’s Eyes; Seeing Clearly; Blind Nation; Questions; Search; Childhood Joy; Childhood Scars; Innocence; Little One; What is To Come; The Mirror; Reflection; Wrinkles; Soul Mirror; Two Worlds; Bloodshot Eyes; Atonement; O Villain; Pay For Your Sins; A Hero?.

‘Extraordinary Moments’, the lead poem of 14 lines written in free verse, explores nature to ask two interrelated but rhetorical questions, ‘But can you rise? / Can you rise and triumph?’. The poet uses this poem to challenge humans to create their own extraordinary moments of remarkable eventslike the wonders of nature. ‘The best of us’, the poet opines, ‘are those who maintain their will even in the face of hardship’

The first poem in this collection, ‘Sunset and Dawn’ shows that Mulikat Lawal is a nature poet. In that poem, she handles the nature with tenderness by not tampering with its forms. Tampering with the nature’s form can create an obscure imagery. The following lines naturally flow into one another: ‘What do you hear / When you gaze / Into the sunset, / Nature’s ever sign of / Day burying itself / Into the night, / Of light transforming / Into thick darkness?’. This is a rhetorical question that the poet connects with a human condition using another question, ‘Do you feel yourself / Being remoulded into / Something less bright? When light transforms into darkness, do you feel yourself changing into something less bright? It is purely a reawakening poem for the reader.

The beauty of Mulikat’s poetic expressiveness is shown in ‘I Shall Raise My Voice’. The tempo of the poem, which is written in first person narrative, is extraordinarily high. It starts with the needs of the protagonist, ‘I need a rhythm, I need a verse, / I need a chorus that tells me / All about life I need to know / I need an orchestra / To raise voices and instruments / In praise of what is / And what will be’. It ends well in a climax, ‘No matter how I sound, / I shall raise my voice / And sing and dance’.  Literarily the poem admonishesthose who are not so good in their fields not to relent in their efforts, they should acquire the relevant tools that can aid their works; no matter how they sound now, they will eventually sing and dance in praises.

‘Ghosts or Angels’ is a poem in the realm of spirituality. The poet admonishes readers to stand on their feet and erase from their minds what they must have seen in their sleep – fear or favour; nightmare or sweet dream – and make life meaningful for themselves. What they must have seen – good or bad – is not a vision of reality. The poet also employs several rhetorical questions in this inspiring poem.

One of the finest Nigerian poets, Ezenwa Ohaeto in his award-winning collection of poems entitled ‘The Voice of the Night Masquerade’, searches for the truth of nationhood but later opines that the truth will one day rise to the top again.

In similar vein, Mulikat Lawal searches for the truth in ‘Blind Nation’. But while Ezenwa opines that truth will rise to the top again, Mulikat asks ‘Where is the light?’. ‘What have we ever known / But the darkness that / We have always known’. The last lines of this beautiful poem resonate with a line in JP Clark’s celebrated play, ‘All for Oil’, ‘In broad daylight, we are in darkness’. The nation truly is blind!

The 50 beautiful poems in this collection, arranged tenderly and creatively, are an invitation towards seizing the extraordinary moments, through the breathing words. I am more than moved, inspired and amazed by the powerful and strong voice of the poet. Mulikat Lawal’s ‘Extraordinary Moments’ will be a good companion and guide, leading the reader into deeper communion with the world of nature in connection with humanity and spirituality.