Book: The Swinging Emotion
Content: Two Sections, thirty one
poems
Author: OnyekabaN. Charles
Genre: Poetry
Reviewer: wumifab
A poetry reviewer once said “poetry
should be a treasure that has to be painstakingly or at least with a measure of
effort dug up…”, this I personally do not totally agree with but sometimes you
get some extra form of excitement when you crack the code of what seems like an
impossible to understand poem. A renowned poet like Wole Soyinka is a master of
this art but his contemporary like the famous J.P. Clark usually sits on the
other side of the fence. Charles’ poems, like J.P. Clarks’ is devoid of the
complexities or hard to understand expressions found mostly in the 19 and 20th
century poets leaving it very simple to understand and sometimes could lose
flow ending up more like a write-up than an actual work of poetry. For poem
lovers who believe in and crave for hard to comprehend poetry, his works will
not come across as challenging. With a greater deal of patience though, both
the lovers of complex poetry and fans of simple, straight forward expressions
will find his writing very interesting.
“Am I in love?” is one of my favorites.
The poem depicts the state of infatuation or love as the case maybe, with the
character in spite of all the emotional chaos attributed to such state only get
to ask at the end of the poem if he was in love.
Charles tried hard in his workto
blend funny with slightly or a times outright melancholic poems. This helped in
the overall colourful picture the poems paint making it truly a bouquet of
Swinging Emotions.
Some of the poems will come popping
right out of the pages leaving you either excited or totally disgusted. “Beyond
words” is one poem that will leave you dreaming about love or the one you love
while a poem like “They died obeying the clarion call” will leave you
questioning the government or simply disgusted at the value we place on human
life.
The work like any other has its fair
measure of ups and downs. An expression like “My eyes are trembling…” found in
the poem “Miss you” seems to be odd as such is impracticable, the body may
tremble but the eyes; I doubt. We may excuse this though as every poet has some
measure liberty with words. “This Valentine day” a poem that is supposed to
come in lieu of a gift to a heart throb doesn’t seem to fully enchant as it
should. But on the other hand, a poem like “who defiled you” narrates a
beautiful story that end in a rather bizarre twist. This is beauty piece.
“The Search” like many of the poems
in the anthology leaves you with a strong undeniable message while some others
leave you confused or odd just like the title “forever odd”.
Toward the closing, Charles made a
tact effort at bringing to fore the challenges faced by the Nigeria youths in
the poem “they say we are the leaders of tomorrow”. Sincerely, his approach to
the topic seems patriotic yet the poem can leave you questioning your
citizenship. On the flip side, the poem dedicated to Nigeria at 50 or the poem
titled “peaceful co-existence”was able to finally push home the point lingering
on patriotism, harmony and co-operation.
Generally, his sense of descriptionis
just above average as he seems not to invest time painting vivid pictures in
our mind. Similarly, he spared only a few lines for pure figurative expression
which usually add flavour to poetry yet in spite of this deficiency, he was
able to successfully craft his message into awesome odes.
Conclusively, Swinging Emotion is an
awesome attempt from a first time author. If you ask me “should you buy a copy?”,
my answer would be “GRAB A COPY NOW!”
