Renewal [excerpt]
I set you free that night, father.
When you came back in that yellow Volkswagen,
in that dream.
I made a boat of honor for you.
Woven of poems and words and not words.
I set it on the ocean.
Father Obuna said to me,
a gift is freely given and a gift
is freely returned.
It has taken me thirty years
to understand this.
Yemenya has your heart now.
May she be merciful.
May she love you.
The wound bleeds no more.
Which is to say,
what I have desired is like salt
left out all night and gone.
8
This is not a lamentation, damn it.
This is a love song.
This is a love song.
Like reggae—it all falls on the off beat.
If there is a way, it is here.
They say you cannot say this in a poem.
That you cannot say, love, and mean anything.
That you cannot say, soul, and approach heaven.
But the sun is no fool, I tell you.
It will rise for nothing else.
When you came back in that yellow Volkswagen,
in that dream.
I made a boat of honor for you.
Woven of poems and words and not words.
I set it on the ocean.
Father Obuna said to me,
a gift is freely given and a gift
is freely returned.
It has taken me thirty years
to understand this.
Yemenya has your heart now.
May she be merciful.
May she love you.
The wound bleeds no more.
Which is to say,
what I have desired is like salt
left out all night and gone.
8
This is not a lamentation, damn it.
This is a love song.
This is a love song.
Like reggae—it all falls on the off beat.
If there is a way, it is here.
They say you cannot say this in a poem.
That you cannot say, love, and mean anything.
That you cannot say, soul, and approach heaven.
But the sun is no fool, I tell you.
It will rise for nothing else.
Abani’s collection, Sanctificum is an ambitious and courageous outcry that shows readers the power of what poetry can bring. Poetry can offer courage and renewed hope by which the words on the page can spring out and grab hold of the everlasting feeling that the reader can connect to. Darla Himeless, a reviewer of Abani’s work, states how Abani did not want this collection to be mistaken for heaviness or complex but rather to give a sense of renewed hope. He was imprisoned and tortured in his homeland Nigeria for writing literature that marked him as a traitor to the country and having lived through the torture, he wrote what was kept up inside him, the truth and a hope for renewal (2010).
Sanctificum is Latin for sanctify or make holy, it is the books action and invitation written in an accessibly haunting voice. It is divided into fourteen sections that are all linked to unfold in the direction of revelation, using repetition to ritualize remembrance and hope. Sanctificum is Chris Abani’s fifth published collection of poems. In this collection Abani’s imagination, “moves with gravity and playfulness from Los Angeles, ‘a dream we cannot bear,’ to Berlin’s Holocaust museum, to Israel/Palestine, to Burma, Tanzania, Nigeria, and beyond” (Himeless). Abani’s personal song of light and love. For the reader searching for meaning and hope despite war, oil spills, inhumane extortion and white supremacy, Sanctificum is a must read.
Poem Excerpt from:
Abani, Chris. "Poems." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, Jan. 2010. Web. 16 Dec. 2014. <http://www.poets.org/poetsorg /poem/renewal-excerpt>.
Sanctificum is Latin for sanctify or make holy, it is the books action and invitation written in an accessibly haunting voice. It is divided into fourteen sections that are all linked to unfold in the direction of revelation, using repetition to ritualize remembrance and hope. Sanctificum is Chris Abani’s fifth published collection of poems. In this collection Abani’s imagination, “moves with gravity and playfulness from Los Angeles, ‘a dream we cannot bear,’ to Berlin’s Holocaust museum, to Israel/Palestine, to Burma, Tanzania, Nigeria, and beyond” (Himeless). Abani’s personal song of light and love. For the reader searching for meaning and hope despite war, oil spills, inhumane extortion and white supremacy, Sanctificum is a must read.
Poem Excerpt from:
Abani, Chris. "Poems." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, Jan. 2010. Web. 16 Dec. 2014. <http://www.poets.org/poetsorg /poem/renewal-excerpt>.