(A hearty review of amu nnadi’s "the love canticles", Griots Lounge, 2020)
By Aka Eze Aka ("Ivom-Igbo")
I keep reading _the love canticles_ . I'm no longer good at cramming; my brain has gone rusty. Weep not for me anyway. Don't cry for me Argentina: the truth is I have a way out of this aging problem.
I just have to read, enjoy and read again the lucid poems of Chijioke Amu-Nnadi in this his new and hot book of poems. The work demonstrates the power of words. Just words that won't allow me control my emotions.
Chijioke Amu-Nnadi, Chijioke Amu-Nnadi, Chijioke Amu-Nnadi .... How many times did I call you? The Big Masquerade, my Chairman, how many times? The people who write the kind of things you write are often like Shakespearean Cassius. Gawky, shrivelled and unkempt. But you are robust well-fed and always tidy. How do you do it! With so much flesh!
I started with *_altar call_ ...* _Come, love, here, beside me, stay..._ See how he writes? Placing words unceremoniously, albeit unseriously... Nevertheless, these words seep down into the soul like a infiltrating water recharge. Besides, love is no ceremony, love is not approached with deserved seriousness, such like a butterfly flapping into the forest!
From *_altar call_* ...I thumbed back to *_tulips_ .* ... The fourth stanza... What do they call it in poetry...stanza...? Yes! *_tulips_* .. _cured garden of love; my floral addictions; body of fragile stem_ ... My goodness,!
This Chijioke sef. Who told him about my Chika? Those days in secondary school when she was so tender, like the stern of melon leaves. She had this unusual love for flowers. Chika had a garden that I enjoyed. I won't say more!
I left that, flipped to *_nke'm oma_ .* .. Oh my wife! She should listen to my heart read *_nke'm oma._* ... _brimful with all your sweet insanities_ ... I wonder how Chijioke Amu-Nnadi came about these words. By experience or by study? If by experience, then he is a spoilt child! Walahi!
Sanity is not a word to describe great poets. All poets have madness in their system. Methinks they must be a form of spirit. They are not wholly human. And so is Chijioke Amu-Nnadi. _Okala mmadu, okala mmuo_ !
If you think he is not crazy, then read *_teach me to love you_* ... Boy!
_tell me the sex of a verdant mangrove; where at dusk sun takes off its briefs_ ; _running sensual rays, as love's fingers; on the damp flesh of your geography,; a poet’s canoe paddles, seeking shore; before nights solitude strikes its rod..._ .
Chijioke Amu-Nnadi, Chijioke Amu-Nnadi... I have called you twice now. Even when my heart is tanning always for your book, for to stop is to fail love and die. Truly, I have fallen in love with your work.
Love is strong.
the love canticles is now a companion that assuages frayed emotions. My chairman is a champion lover, lover.
(Aka Eze Aka, also known as Ivom-Igbo, is the General Manager, Radio Nigeria Voice FM, Nsukka, and a member of the Nsukka Journalists Foundation)
Comments