Nostalgia and Tears F’Orile is a new poetry book by Lola Fabowale, a Nigerian-Canadian poet.
Published by Kraftbooks Nigeria limited under its Kraftgriots series, the volume is a collection of 38 dramatic, evocative and lyrical poems divided into three sections spread over 92 pages.
It has a Foreword written by Dr. Wale Okediran, Secretary General, Pan African Writers Association (PAWA) and endnotes column explaining a sprinkling of terminologies in Yoruba, Spanish, Irish-Gaelic and French, apart from English the polyglot-writer uses to express herself Theme-wise, Nostalgia and Tears F’Orile reflects upon and celebrates contrasting lifestyles and living in Nigeria, the poet’s country of origin and Canada, her adopted home. In it, Fabowale tackles Nigeria’s dysfunctions and highlights its historical, cultural and economic potential to becoming one of the greatest nations in the world. In the very first poem in the collection she decries how fecund precolonial entrepreneurial life turned arid with:… colonial education designed for lackeysRather than for credible masters of destinies..
In a separate poem NEPA o, she explores the theme of how productivity in the nation has plummeted because of “..myopic leaders..With debauched will to seize, not share, powers!Whose greed empties the public purse into overseas vaultsAs they dehumanise youths that’d be at school by defaultInto thugs who maim, maul or kill electoral opponentsOr vandals who if skilled ’d build or repair components…”With poems like Redemption, Words break bones, Where vultures gather, the poet also explores core themes of global concern – race relations, international development and refugee resettlement based on her experiences as a Diasporan.Some of the poems deal with ubiquitous human experience and condition teaching great lessons on traits like love, humility, diligence, trust, treachery, cruelty, injustice, altruism, etc.Yet others extol nature in its exquisite and yet tranquil beauty.
For instance in Mountain’s view, she enthuses:The view of those mountains refreshes my soulAlready, I hear the music of nightingalesFrom those heights! I can feel on my tongueDew drops of the surrounding valley!Switching from epochs – from the precolonial to the colonial and post colonial; from cultures across the globe from Africa to Europe, America to Asia; Fabowale presents a portrait of Nigeria as nation of contradictions, one with a glorious and formidable past but now limping, crippled by a concert of factors namely but not limited to inept and corrupt political leadership and a complicit citizenry.One in which things including institutions like government, the defunct National electric Power Authority (NEPA)which worked seamlessly in the past no longer do so, resulting in lawlessness, impunity, inefficiency, insufferable power outage and acute suffering and hardship by the people.
In highly evocative language and style she laments these realities vis a vis trends in other climes notably the advanced western countries, which, however, she notes, share in the blame for the nation’s ills and arrested growth through colonialism and neo-colonialism and imperialism which massively exploited its human and natural resources like other African nations’ and also undermined the peoples’ self confidence in their abilities.As a debut author, Fabowale has, with this work, powerfully registered herself as a writer to watch. What with her impressive serving of choice diction, witty lines and yet oftentimes bold and courageous submissions.The social policy analyst, essayist, novelist and short story writer displays remarkable artistic genius and illustrious use of language that make her lines irresistible but also belie her non-literary disciplinary background.She not only effectively employs imageries but also rhyming techniques which even established poets avoid due to the difficulty of adhering to the sometimes rigorous and inflexible technical demands. Nor, as the following lines on precolonial work life show, is her rhyming style confined to English words alone:
My great grandmother at her palm oil pressBeside her batik dyeing wellsCheek-by-jowl with her pottery wheelsThough never captured on reelsDancing Bata at Osun Oshogbo
Wasn’t a mere trader chewing Orogbo…Likewise in her condemnation of the ignoble death metered out by Moroccan immigration officials to 23 young African immigrants, she writes in the poem, Beyond bothered at the border:Were I not better off, if bolder, I had faced those domestic nemesesThan be maimed or die in the hands of cowardly supremacistsWhose blows can never rival mine were we to engage in ekeThey stripped of all accoutrements—and I, unshackled, back in Epe.
With its hallmarks of simplicity and lucidity, drama, colour, humour and candour, the reader is in for both a thought-provoking as well as pleasurable reading experience.