A REVIEW OF UMAISA'S POEM "WE LIVE EXPOSED"_ BY PROF. OLUSEGUN ADEKOYA

Comprising three septets, 'We Live Exposed' is profoundly philosophical. Its first stanza reveals a great truth about the constitution of human society: leaders and the led cannot escape from each other, because the former, however fortified and opulent they may be, depend on labour and sweat of the latter, an intriguing relational order that is the fundament of their vulnerability, or, as insinuated in the title of the poem, their exposure. 

The homeless who dwell under city bridges and in ramshacle sheds rob the wealthy who live in mansions of bliss and peace. In a bid to escape abjection and misery, some desperate members of the underserved class emigrate to El Dorado lands flowing with oats and barley, where they are increasingly confronted with the harsh, uncomfortable reality that they are second-class citizens and are not wanted in their countries of refuge. The whole world is exile! Only in death will humans find a perfect peace and an untrammelled rest that they all desire. 

Perhaps, the greatest unsettling truth is embodied in the last hepset, namely the inescapable paradox of life, which is communicated through three oxymorons, "hard thrones," "defeat and glory," and "frosty wine of victory." Candidates who contested and lost the 2023 presidential election to Bola Ahmed Tinubu would be secretly sniggering at his failure to tame hydra-headed serpents of poverty and insecurity in Nigeria. Alas, how quickly a personal political victory has metamorphosed into a collective national loss!

WE ARE ALL TOGETHER, whether in China, Nigeria, Russia, or the United States of America. The vision is applicable at the global level, especially as it concerns mistreatment of Earth by both the powerful and the weak nations of the world. What we glorify and perceive in ignorance as our conquest of Nature is, ironically, our defeat by mute matter. However, those who see with inner eyes could hear its thunderous roar in climate change that is a real threat to the entirety of the civilisation process. 

Umaisha has mastered the art of packing philosophical profunditities into short poetic lines that are constituted of few seemingly simple homely images. Remarkable is his deployment of culinary images in the poem - egg, oats, barley, and wine. A judicious distribution of the wealth of each nation, the poet implies, would go a long way in ensuring safety of life and security of property. 

But would greed and selfishness permit it?

© Prof. Olusegun Adekoya

- Nigeria 

****

The poem:

We Live Exposed

We live exposed 

when we live in mansions

protected by the rights of

those under the foundation,

beneath bridges and market

sheds after the market has

gone home.

We live protected 

by a shell whose egg 

has been eaten, when we 

sit on the hand of time,

watching the flow to the 

land of oats and barley 

served in drums or dreams.

When we live, 

kings on hard thrones,

choosing to stand rather 

than sit, lest we slip and lie, 

we shall reach the drums,

defeat and glory filled to the

cork, frosty wine of victory.

© Sumaila Umaisha

- Nigeria