Raging muse by the raging sea
And even though the last of the book’s three parts, “Outside the Sea…”, is not directly referring to any oceanic element or the sea itself, all the poems have a common bond—the tumult and turmoil represented by the rage and restlessness of the sea’s waves, and the complacency and timidity represented by its calmness. To […]
And even though the last of the book’s three parts, “Outside the Sea…”, is not directly referring to any oceanic element or the sea itself, all the poems have a common bond—the tumult and turmoil represented by the rage and restlessness of the sea’s waves, and the complacency and timidity represented by its calmness.
To be sure, E.E. Sule has always been fascinated by tempestuous—so to say—poetic outpourings. And so, while leisurely frolicking on the beach (“Tender and graceful /your touch /oh cool sand of seaside” [“Sure it is”], he hopes for some kind of spiritual healing and emotional comfort from the sea: “Your salty breath, your salty stare /cool my frayed nerves /my broken emotion /Dancing with the gift of healing…”
His passion is also aroused, perhaps by the vast expanse of the sea, the restlessness of its waves, and the fury of its tides. In the same poem, he also speaks of what needs healing: “creative infection”, the struggle of “Art against art /Fury of pen, vitriol of vision” (“It is amazing”). He then wonders why, despite its powerful thrusts, the sea has not been able to wash away the societal decay he has all along been lamenting and speaking against. “What do you say”, he queries, “of the eternal decay /of the immortal rust /unwashed by you? /… /ages are going /nations are wasting” (“I ask”). He also dares the sea to strike those responsible for the sorry state into which the society—not only Nigerian but African, because he is now looking at things from the perspectives of Niyi Osundare, Ayi Kwei Armah, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Chinua Achebe, etc—by calling on it to “invoke a death /from your eerie bowel to strike these repeated ghosts /throwing dusts in the eyes of my folks” (“The news comes”).
In the second part of the book, entitled: “Feeling the Sensuous Flesh of the Sea”, the poet moves a bit away from the helpless emotions evoked in him by the vision of the sea to the sensual sensations one can only get through physical contact. This contact, whether with the sea or by the sea, which is “a magical trap to seekers /of tamed love and hot tea”, occurs when the poet painting the town red, savouring the “looming drumbeats” and “embers of Senegal blues”. It also happens when he seeks to be wrapped, along with the mysterious M, in the sea’s “warms sheets of waves” and taken where by the current where “the creatures will welcome us /into the chamber of the mermaid”.
While the poet is communing with the sea, however, things do not seem to have changed outside it. There still continues to be injustice, oppression, corruption, intimidation and, all the things that can, literally and figuratively, kill a person four times—the poet dies when the ink in his pen dries, when there is no tea while he works, when “post office stuck in bizarre charges” and “when the posted hope returned /publishers note: ‘not interested in CW’”. Others, who have experienced the Jos rain and other upheavals similar to I, die a different death from the rain, which the poet describes as “vomit of spears /piercing our souls” and “diarrhea (or jangrhea) /of /haemorrhaged consciences /from /ill-fated dark-laden clouds”.
What the Sea Told Me is, indeed, a souvenir; but it is a souvenir that, again, marks E.E. Sule as a poet at once belonging to the model class of Nigerian poets and defying emulation in his diction, style, and fervour. One wonders at his boldness, especially when, where other poets present their own poetic dialogues, he chooses to create that of others—in the poem “The wall, his helper: a dialogue”, we witness exchanges between Emman [Usman Shehu?] and Ismail [Bala Garba]. Is it a way of hiding behind a veil?