Poetics of Uwadinachi’s ...Heart of Pain
THE NIGERIAN COMPASS MAGAZINE
BY Oladipo Kehinde
Book Title: Scars in the Heart of Pain
Author: Uche Uwadinachi
Publisher: Virgilis Communications
Year of publication: 2009
Number of pages: 70
Reviewer: Oladipo Kehinde
Scars are indelible marks rippled with
pains and pangs of memory. It is a pathetic incident or situation that
affects the collective consciousness with pulsation of pains.
“In Heart of Pain” the poet writes: “Each turn multiplies a pain/ In the closest vein/ Another aching day/ Paralyzing the waking dawn/ With a new stitch/ The feelings make the heart to sing the song of anomie. These pains are political undertone. The heart bleeds in silence, hoping for a succor when the sun shines tomorrow to wipe away the tears of sorrow. The situation is moribund.” This is a collection of poem with collective consciousness.
The people bear the grunt and the price of freedom is love. Love is the soothing balm for arching heart. It is the only panacea for the songs of heartbreak. Every scar tells a story which the memory cannot forget. “In the struggle against pain” the poet writes: And this generation/ Cannot begin scavenging the scenes/ For traces of faceless littering carcasses / When history too is dead/ We can only recover fear/ There is a scar when things are not right and no one is asking a question.
Collective suffering breeds chaos and anarchy. Love is the bound of our existence. There is a scar in the heart when the promises of Eldorado have become an illusion. There is scar in the heart when situation is moribund. Fear and insecurity are the harbinger of Scar in the Heart of Pain. Cascade of tears from the eyes of the masses. They are spectators in the political arena. They listen and watch as the drama unfolds.
The collection of poems is in three movements namely: the curse, cure and course. The alliteration of the movements is embedded in the heart of pain. The curse is the calamity and casualty. “Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race.
” William Ewart Gladstone. When one looks at people faces, one will notice things are not just right. The cure is to live and eat and let others do likewise.
In “A world of worries” the poet lament: A world of words/ Porridge of hopeful phrases/ In several dishes of religion/ There sweetness cures no hunger/ Only an after-earth nutrient/ Forsakes us in a world of famine/ It is only love that can bring that beautiful and peaceful bliss. There will be pain and upheaval when few people are living in affluence and opulence.
And the majorities are wallowing in penury and misery. The poet’s writes in “Heart against earth”: Together our souls shall stamp/ This concrete ground/ In fleet strides that beat anger; / Breaking its brick to grab concrete crops/
The river sings and dances endlessly. The poet urges us to make the best out of every situation we are facing as a nation. The poet’s opine in “The river” In its pure cleansing depth/ Reasons are regalia in blotches/ To be washed in the stream/ Our conscience thrives strongly in consciousness/ The course is the wheel of progress and togetherness.
A metaphor for Happiness River. We have to forget the past and look forward to the future. The poet depicts the serenity of nature “In Heart of ease”: The river spreads/ Like mother blanket of hen’s wing/ Around earth’s naked surface/ Huhh…its curly little waves/ Create a resonance of rhymes/ Ushering water birds to play/ Soft songs of lullaby/ The river is a means of sustenance and we visit the river. The poet also gives tribute to River Osun in Osogbo, a venerable natural spring. The deity of the river is the goddess of fertility. Her festival attracts people from far and near with a national consciousness. The poet uses river in this segment as a metaphor.
In “Osun” the poet’s write: Unsoiled to any earth tie/ Flowing generously for all/ Inviting us to thread/ New earth in water/ Where our mad pains/ Will be pacified and/ Taken away/ The river connects us together as one. The river belongs to us. When pain tears the heart apart, the only thing needed is love. The soothing balm of love will heal the land of it collective experience. Love will spring from that heart of pain. Let the rain of love fall and heal the land of all its pain.
“In Heart of Pain” the poet writes: “Each turn multiplies a pain/ In the closest vein/ Another aching day/ Paralyzing the waking dawn/ With a new stitch/ The feelings make the heart to sing the song of anomie. These pains are political undertone. The heart bleeds in silence, hoping for a succor when the sun shines tomorrow to wipe away the tears of sorrow. The situation is moribund.” This is a collection of poem with collective consciousness.
The people bear the grunt and the price of freedom is love. Love is the soothing balm for arching heart. It is the only panacea for the songs of heartbreak. Every scar tells a story which the memory cannot forget. “In the struggle against pain” the poet writes: And this generation/ Cannot begin scavenging the scenes/ For traces of faceless littering carcasses / When history too is dead/ We can only recover fear/ There is a scar when things are not right and no one is asking a question.
Collective suffering breeds chaos and anarchy. Love is the bound of our existence. There is a scar in the heart when the promises of Eldorado have become an illusion. There is scar in the heart when situation is moribund. Fear and insecurity are the harbinger of Scar in the Heart of Pain. Cascade of tears from the eyes of the masses. They are spectators in the political arena. They listen and watch as the drama unfolds.
The collection of poems is in three movements namely: the curse, cure and course. The alliteration of the movements is embedded in the heart of pain. The curse is the calamity and casualty. “Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race.
” William Ewart Gladstone. When one looks at people faces, one will notice things are not just right. The cure is to live and eat and let others do likewise.
In “A world of worries” the poet lament: A world of words/ Porridge of hopeful phrases/ In several dishes of religion/ There sweetness cures no hunger/ Only an after-earth nutrient/ Forsakes us in a world of famine/ It is only love that can bring that beautiful and peaceful bliss. There will be pain and upheaval when few people are living in affluence and opulence.
And the majorities are wallowing in penury and misery. The poet’s writes in “Heart against earth”: Together our souls shall stamp/ This concrete ground/ In fleet strides that beat anger; / Breaking its brick to grab concrete crops/
The river sings and dances endlessly. The poet urges us to make the best out of every situation we are facing as a nation. The poet’s opine in “The river” In its pure cleansing depth/ Reasons are regalia in blotches/ To be washed in the stream/ Our conscience thrives strongly in consciousness/ The course is the wheel of progress and togetherness.
A metaphor for Happiness River. We have to forget the past and look forward to the future. The poet depicts the serenity of nature “In Heart of ease”: The river spreads/ Like mother blanket of hen’s wing/ Around earth’s naked surface/ Huhh…its curly little waves/ Create a resonance of rhymes/ Ushering water birds to play/ Soft songs of lullaby/ The river is a means of sustenance and we visit the river. The poet also gives tribute to River Osun in Osogbo, a venerable natural spring. The deity of the river is the goddess of fertility. Her festival attracts people from far and near with a national consciousness. The poet uses river in this segment as a metaphor.
In “Osun” the poet’s write: Unsoiled to any earth tie/ Flowing generously for all/ Inviting us to thread/ New earth in water/ Where our mad pains/ Will be pacified and/ Taken away/ The river connects us together as one. The river belongs to us. When pain tears the heart apart, the only thing needed is love. The soothing balm of love will heal the land of it collective experience. Love will spring from that heart of pain. Let the rain of love fall and heal the land of all its pain.
http://www.compassnewspaper.org/index.php/categoryblog/13383-poetics-of-uwadinachis-heart-of-pain
SCAR IN THE HEART OF PAIN
By Uche Uwadinachi : A Review
By
Onuchi Mark Onoruoiza
SCAR IN THE HEART OF PAIN by Uche Uwadinachi is a voluble engagement of pain as a brazen metaphor that transcends colour, creed, class, culture and clime.
The poet embarks on a clinical odyssey into the realm of pain; the height of his inventive poesy is enmeshed in an ambience of contrastive echoes, meandering through waning voices, slouching through undergrowths of perplexity in a universe of vociferous venoms.
The collection is a three pronged poetic excursion into the sublime limitations of a vilified voyager who against the odds of tidal floods of pain in a miry wilderness must stand the herculean currents of Medusa’s plagues.
The intricately woven tripod slices through each phase with a carefully laced lexis on a seamless glide across multivalent and technical but understandable nuances. The 70 paged collection parades 51 poems screened into three sub-themes as earlier indicated viz:
Curse (18 poems), Cure (19 poems) and Course (14 poems)
The relevance of this corpus is premised on the happenings in the society as a raw material for intellectual experimentation, the poetics of a canonized universe.
A voyage across his skillfully crafted musings will attest to his polemical amplification in his Heart of Pain:
Each turn multiplies pain// in the closest vein// another aching day//paralyzing the waking dawn.
The grim picture he paints evokes vivid impulse with volcanic power and capacity to trigger a revolution. The height of his frustration is ignited by a world that quakes in the constant drama of pain and this forces him to bellow In Stigma, I scream for the world beyond// to wrap me in its eternal darkness//but all in vain.
He uses Scar as a focal odium to drum home his gross disgust for pain. He graphically captures the lumpen proletariats who struggle to survive in a world of harsh realities, where hustling is the dogma to stay afloat. In Survival he quips, Feeding to avert hunger// clothing to avoid nudity//laboring to redeem debts//leaving to lay dead.
His diversity of pain is well captured in Lies, here he frankly posits that the world we live in is dysfunctional, where pretence is the rule of the game.
Lies
What music are you//Playing to an excited cripple?//Why spice chicken//For your toothless grandfather?//You console an impotent king //With beautiful nude virgins?//Such gift of a radio//For a lonely deaf friend?
In the second phase of his excursion, Cure, his curative antennae comes alive with the passion of a matador who anchors on the inevitability of change as an endearing antidote to Curse. He postulates the way forward in Cure, Not a plastic surgery//Not a royal shroud//Not a quick suicide//Only a confrontation//Of//You by Us can We//Overcome the aged scar.
In the last stanza of Curse to Cure, he fires, Today as it sails// I shall face the scar// And declare my demand to dew. This posturing affirms his poetic thrust as a never-say-die fighter with a quest for a lasting cure. His parabolical inclination and metaphoric depth is engaging. This debut reflects the polyphonic voices of the performer-poet.
In his rhetorically laced engagement as versified in Dream, he shoots,
‘What is dream?
It is the world
Of the hardened fighter-
He never gives up
Until he hears his last breathe puff-
His skin may be spilled
But the mind is his heavy weight.’
This evidently speaks volumes and the sharp diction of the poet attests to his thematic concern as a voyager on a lyrical flight, from the vale of horror to the height of redemption.
He transits to the third phase, COURSE with a high level of momentum effortlessly romanticizing flora and fauna elements. Here he goes on a sundry cruise - motley of vibrant echoes.
He takes us through the path of nature as the idyllic option of perfect bliss. In Its Tides: Our Times, he spills, Morning…//Blowing breeze//Whistling canary birds// in sound clash-orchestral//Choruses to wake sailed soul//For fresh corn to sow. He eulogizes nature in its pristine form in virtually all the poems in this segment. His creative candour in etching words with colourful charm is what makes this new offering a delightful read.
The poet has been able to elegantly present the collective plight of a generation in pain, in a universe of hate as reflected this debut collection by a versatile performance poet, Uche Uwadinachi.
AJ.DAGGA TOLAR INTRODUCES THE POETRY COLLECTION “SCAR IN THE HEART OF PAIN"
...a Consequence of the Internalisation by the Poet of our Collective Burden
This collection of poem is a chain thread that is caused into being by a curse that cuts itself only from a course in search of a cure aimed at purifying the individual from an assumed eternal scar that combines with life to combat against existence.
Existence itself becomes a curse, the living is condemned to a cyclic life of quest for the basic needs of existence. this quest for the means of life, is so life consuming, that only very few can then approach their mind to the question of the meaning of life in a world where life is lived on ones knees and the quest for the meaning why, is in the common consciouness of all, seen to be an aberration.
The common consciouness is therefore seen to be one in order with a life without meaning ... without concern for this present drift by all into Abyss. It is this unhealthy condition that feeds this new collection with poems titled SCAR-IN-THE HEART OF PAIN, by Uche Uwadinachi with an unsettling staccatotic rythm that is in itself a struggle against the pain in the heart of the poet, a consequence of the internalisation by the poet of our collective burden - the very curse that is symbolically characterised as the scar. the very same scar that then chooses to take residence in the depth of our life of unexistence.
What path then must society trod, to free its minds and heart from the pangs of the continued descent into the abyss of unexistence? Is this a task for an individual in a society plagued by a lust for the individual, so arranged to predetermine a failure in this race of life against all the stigmas that recruits even the self to enemy the self? and yet the option of the collective is ruled out, when the poet’s thinking and thoughts is one mind against the common consciouness....
Uche Uwadinachi, only answer to the above delima is a return to the course, we cannot find a cure, from the scar we all want to run distance away from. If we remain unable to harvest the strength of our togetherness into one single mindful course - as the River very well examplifies...
To Read these poems at a single stretch commends itself on us to take a second read, to the poet itself on us to take a second read, to hear the poet performs the poems, draws us to drink from a free flowing “...waters/where our mad pains/will be pacified and/Taken away.” (Osun - Pg 67).
Who would dare to turn down the offer to party with a poem like Osun, quoted above. When Osun in all femine shine, draws us into a cuddule with her very essence, a return into the cradle of our beginning for a new beginning. For how else can we renew life if not in a deep into the bowels of Osun. And making life a new, we renew the possibility of the chance of striking right into the heart of the scar. For only in engagement against pain, can society become renewed ....
My only charge then against Uche Uwadinach in this entire collection is his commiting of poetry to suffer pain, our own life of pain, but by so doing, we see how poetry not only enriches its own art, but as well as behold how we can and must so want to bring the reign of pain to an end.
