Taking Life By The Throat by Emman Shehu
Continued from previous page

There are also moments of the love as in “Her Three Days”, “Evening Chorus”, “An Eye Is Talking”, “Evening” and “Lemon Cream”:

                                           Like never before, we conquer our stammering
                                           Phrases no longer trail away
                                           No, we catch them and instil in them
                                           the speech of open, confident rhythm

                                           Bubbles arise within you
                                           laden with coconut flavour
                                           and your laughter as forceful as
                                           rushing water heads to wash me clean
                                           in the meeting hall of our openness

                                           Soon thereafter, peace will step in to our door
                                           to an embrace possessed of silence
                                           and we will merge, I the lemon, you the cream.
                                           We shall be christened Lemon Cream
                                           I ripen, ready and reaching.

Once again the eternal values provide the means of developing defiance.  It is not surprising therefore that the collection ends on a defiant note:

                                           There are lacerations
                                            But we shall salve our wounds
                                            Calm thunderstorms, quiet this cyclone
                                            That is a tornado about us.
                                            We shall open fresh logbooks

                                            And let our feet sing
                                            So far have we trekked on the trail of light
                                            Searching for proofs and proud events,
                                            Soaring and proud like an eagle in flight.

Both Nwosu and Adewale opt to use unrhymed free verse. The history of free verse shows that it did not happen in a void, but emerged from a conscious effort to break long-standing rules associated with formal poetry. The unrhymed free verse is an extension of this departure from the limitations of the conventional form. The popularity of this version of free verse is evidenced by its wide usage. As Lawrence Schimel has observed, in the first part of an article worth more than a glancing attention titled “Poetic License: Some Thoughts on Free Verse”, it (unrhymed free verse) “is much easier to write, an outpouring of emotion and feeling and raw imagery and beautiful, flowery language, without all those archaic conventions and restrictions of meter and rhyme.” The irony is that this same form, which is an expression of freedom from restrictions, calls for scrupulous handling. Schimel is quick to caution that either form of free verse ” should be as carefully constructed as any formal poem.” This type of meticulous craftsmanship is not consistent in both collections. The rhythmic lilt that seduces the reader in the opening poem (“Chains”) of Waking Dreams is never fully attained all through the collection. It happens too infrequently for it to have an appreciable impact. Only two other poems echo the rhythmic inflection of “Chains” -“Not A Red Rose” and “Ubiquitous”:

                                           I see you in the dance of the leaves
                                           I hear you in the laughter of the wind
                                           I breathe you in the scent of the forest
                                           I hearken to you in the silence of my room
                                           Even in my drunken propulsion to banish your shadows
                                           I can still see you moon-winking at me

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