Songs and Metaphors
For Modupe
I know
There are tunes
My soul should hum
To you, but my throat
Is too sore to attempt them.
I know
There are words
My heart should say
To you, but my mouth
Is too dumb to let her.
I know
My love
You don't love me
But in you
Am too lost to turn back.
Yes
I know
Oh sable homeland
We practice democracy
But my heart
Is too hurt to believe it.
I know
My love
There are spots
My lips should touch
You, but my eyes
Are too blind to see them.
So I say
Oh poor soul sing
Sing of love
To warring homeland
Love too soft to touch
Love much quieter than a burial rite
Love that struck me dumb like thunderstorm
Love that punished my father's purse
But made us one
Love that we lack in Africa!
Open
Pray hungry mouth
Speak of love
Love that weaved webs to steal my sight
A woman too mighty for words to try
Love the silent sky of our earth
Once obsessed
With light like a palace court!
Ah!
Love the thunderous voice of our ancestors!
That blind Africa may regain her sight.
My love
Tell me
How it came to be
That we
To a fierce duet, tempt
The friendly spirits of the gods
By slaughtering ourselves.
Beware!
I say
Recoil from this draw with Liberty.
A portion poured out
To the gods
Isn't for us—poor mortals to sup
Yes
I know I hear
The break of day approaching
Though silently
A voice
Drowned in the chorus
Of tonight's wars
Hush,
Be calm
The sun is returning to her court!
The dews soon
Should descend upon
The slumbering field
Take my hand
Love
It is a sign of daybreak!
Copyright 2009 by Akpoteheri Godfrey Amromare
Critique by Jendi Reiter
Nigerian poet Akpoteheri Godfrey Amromare returns to these pages with "Songs and Metaphors", a stirring combination of the romantic lyric and the war poem. Read his August 2008 critique poem, "Whisper Without Words", here.
"Songs and Metaphors" reminded me of Wilfred Owen's famous World War I poem "Greater Love". Both poems interweave tenderness, tragedy, and prophetic hope, refusing to let the personal remain merely personal against a backdrop of large-scale atrocities, yet valuing that one-on-one intimacy as a possible cure for the desensitized attitudes that perpetuate violence.
The first three stanzas of Amromare's poem lead us to think that it is a traditional love poem. I welcomed the few touches of originality: "tunes/My soul should hum/To you" (rather than the expected "sing") and the personification of the heart as "her" instead of "it" in the second stanza, which gives the interaction a more protective, affectionate tone. But then, in the fourth stanza, an epic lament—"Oh sable homeland"—breaks into the potential narcissism of the lyric. Sentiments that could verge on banality are transfigured by their connection to relationships beyond the two lovers, such that the narrator's personal heartbreak does not distract him from his community's suffering but rather provides a means to empathize with and critique it.
Throughout the Bible, there is the recurring theme of the individual whose pains and triumphs are representative of his entire nation, for good or ill. I'm thinking particularly of the messianic "suffering servant" prophecies in the book of Isaiah, and St. Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15:22, "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ will all be made alive." In Amromare's poem, the fate of Africa seems similarly intertwined with the fate of his narrator. The collective wound has left him personally scarred. Like the scorched earth of a conquered village, he feels too damaged to produce the fruits of love. Yet if he can heal, if he can find stillness and tenderness amid the clamor of war, could that be the first green shoot that brings the "slumbering field" back to life?
So I say
Oh poor soul sing
Sing of love
To warring homeland
Love too soft to touch
Love much quieter than a burial rite
Normally I tell poets to be sparing with their exclamation points, but the ones that proliferate in the second half of this poem seem as essential as the crescendo at the end of a symphony, lifting us with the narrator to ever more sublime extremes of joy and grief. Perhaps this technique works because the poem starts out in a restrained, even numb, mood. When passion finally breaks through, we rejoice with the narrator that "The sun is returning to her court!"
I would change a few lines of this poem to make them clearer and correct some word usage. "Love that struck me dumb like thunderstorm" should be either "a thunderstorm" or "thunderstorms". To keep the characteristic rhythm of Amromare's voice, which is tight and assured throughout, I might opt for the plural, though the singular better captures the suddenness of the event.
In the lines "Love that weaved webs to steal my sight/A woman too mighty for words to try", the verb "weaved" should be "wove". I wasn't sure of the meaning of the next line. The woman is probably the beloved to whom the poem is addressed, but what are the "words trying" to do? He seems to be saying that his beloved is beyond words, in a good way. However, "steal my sight" has negative connotations—is his love a delusion? That would be contrary to the positive role that love plays everywhere else in the poem.
Further down, when he asks "How it came to be/That we/To a fierce duet, tempt/The friendly spirits of the gods", I feel like there is a missing verb after "we". It might be smoother to replace "To" with "In", since one doesn't generally speak of tempting someone to a duet, whereas one could conceive of the dance of seduction as a duet. Finally, in the lines "A portion poured out/To the gods/Isn't for us—poor mortals to sup", I would replace the dash with a line break, because I like the pause there but the dash seems out of place in the sentence structure.
These awkward spots aside, I love this poem's prophetic voice and the earthiness of its imagery. Its old-fashioned flavor might not appeal to some of the academic literary journals but it could do well in contests with a more populist aesthetic. Amromare is a poet to watch.
Where could a poem like "Songs and Metaphors" be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
Yeovil Literary Prizes
Entries must be received by May 31
British cultural center offers prizes up to 1,000 pounds for unpublished poems, stories and novel excerpts by authors aged 18+; online entries accepted
Keats-Shelley Prize
Entries must be received by June 30
British contest offers 5,000 pounds in total prizes for poetry on a Romantic theme (changes annually) and essays on any topic relating to Byron, Keats, or the Shelleys (Percy and Mary)
Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards
Postmark Deadline: July 1
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation offers prizes of $1,000 in adult category and $200 in youth categories for poems exploring positive visions of peace and the human spirit; 30 lines maximum
This poem and critique appeared in the May 2009 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
Categories: Poetry Critiques
