‘Jalaludeen Ibrahim is not an angry poet’

When a son was born to bibliophile Ibrahim Labbo Maradun in his native Maradun in Zamfara, little did he know that he had fathered a poet. He named him Jalaludeen, perhaps unmindful of the great Persian poet Jalal al Din Rumi, and allowed the boy roam in his library hemmed in by books and the […]

When a son was born to bibliophile Ibrahim Labbo Maradun in his native Maradun in Zamfara, little did he know that he had fathered a poet. He named him Jalaludeen, perhaps unmindful of the great Persian poet Jalal al Din Rumi, and allowed the boy roam in his library hemmed in by books and the potent smell of knowledge.

“I grew up in my father’s library where I swam in a pool of copious works of diverse literary genres,” Jalaludeen Ibrahim says.

He was lured instantly by the beauty of prose and had an infantile aversion to poetry. It wasn’t until his first year in senior secondary school that he penned his first poem. Now, he has brought out his debut collection of poems simply titled, Trance, a potpourri of rage, love and reflections.

Our words won’t falter

Our minds, we speak

This dream we won’t desert

This storm we won’t let die

Injustice we defy

With these lines from his poem ‘Defiance’, Jalaludeen Ibrahim seethes and explodes with anger in his debut collection. The slim book contains some 60 poems.

But the Usman Dan Fodio University graduate of English insists he is not an angry poet.

“I have always found poetry writing a way to connect with my own spirituality. Jalaludeen Ibrahim is not an angry poet; he simply puts down his thoughts and feelings the way they come,” he says.

Some of the almost tangible rage in Trance is attributable to the spirit of protest that has been sweeping across the world and is characterising an entire generation. In a way, Jalaludeen belongs to this protest generation and it is easy to link some of his poems with the anti-fuel subsidy protest of this January and anger at the injustices prevalent in the Nigerian society.

But the collection was not inspired by those defining moments for Nigerian youths, when perhaps for the first time, they set aside their differences to contest an unpopular government policy on the pot-holed streets. His journey began long before then.

“It wasn’t my intention to publish a poetry volume. There was a time a course mate paid me a visit in Maradun where he found a number of poems on my desk and some on my mattress. He was astounded to see that I wrote those poems, which I kept to myself. ‘Why?’ he asked. He persuaded me to share some on our literary press board, which I did. I received loads of comments of mixed reactions from both students and lecturers of my Department. Those comments implanted in me another seed of courage to write,” he says.

But life on the campus at UDUS contributed more to the conception of Trance than that. “When I was in my third year in the University, I took scores of poems to my mentor Dr. Muhammad Tahir Alfaqeeh who was also my poetry lecturer/coach. He went through them, made some edits and advised that I should give some of the poems time to mature. That was how Trance got conceived,” he says.

Interestingly, Jalaludeen draws his inspiration and influence from his namesake, the 13th century Persian mystic and poet, Jalal-al Din Rumi. But unlike Rumi, whose principal concerns were shaped by faith and a sense of loss for his friends, Jalaludeen is not only concerned with national issues, but also by love.

Many of the poems, particularly in the second half of the collection, are devoted to romantic love, something the young poet says is the greatest feeling in the world.

“I write love poems for the reason that I love writing on the subject of ‘love’ when I’m in the mood. Every so often, I feel like I don’t write love poems, they write me,” he says.

Lines such as these: “Your love the first smile of my day/ Your name the song of my heart” demonstrate Jaluledeen’s infatuation, like most young men his age, with love and as a poet, there is no greater avenue to vent his feelings than through his art. It is a case of heart and art. Admittedly some of his poems are filial, as he himself was quick to point out, but most of them are not. And when asked who the lady is, the subject of such flowery outpour, he avoids a direct answer, preferring instead to describe her with equivocations.

“She is the pulchritude of flowers. She is the alluring beauty who dwells in my thoughts, my questions and my answers,”    he says.

But beyond love, romantic or filial, Jalaludeen is also preoccupied with some national questions: identity, the slow pace of development in his country and the ambience of despair all delivered with brevity and simplicity. For him, making his poems accessible to all is a crucial element of his art.

“Despite the fact that poetry is a cryptic art, we must learn to write with both artistic men and laymen in mind. I made poetry to hand in Trance; I write not to communicate to fellow literary cronies only, but to be in touch with a wide audience,” he says.

He seems preoccupied with defying the notion that poets are mostly read by their fellow poets. “There are some ways to write that even a layman can relate it with the world he resides in.  With Trance, I want nothing more than to help my fellow man perceive the world around, and I feel my contribution is to be through words and emotions and thoughts,”

This choice of style is largely influenced by his reading of poems by poets from diverse backgrounds.

“I love reading Chris Abani, Kofi Awoonor, William Wordsworth, Robert Frost, David Rubadiri and Rumi. Abubakar Gimba, Chinua Achebe and Cheikh Himidou Kane of Ambiguous Adventure remain the writers of my childhood,” he says.

Jalaludeen is a poet, knocking on the door of the reader’s mind with a subtle poetry he hopes will find a home in the mind of the priests and laity of this old art.