Mohammed Salihu’s Voices From The Soil: Wounds and Wisdom is a 75-page chapbook of 24 lyrical poems. It is an evocative thematization of grief, spirituality, migration, nostalgia, and the social realities of a society in respite. The collection is divided into four sections, namely ‘Devotion Songs’, ‘Gloom of Songs’, ‘Legacy Songs’ and ‘Healing Songs.’ Through the effective use of imagery, metaphors, rhetorical questions, alliteration, allusion, and simile, the poet problematizes the pains of loss and suffering occasioned by economic hardship in the land. The emotional density of the poems is accentuated through the use of concrete imagery and metaphors that resonate with the social realities of the day. It is also a philosophical reflection on life and spirituality.
In the opening poem ‘Al-Khaliq’, the poet glorifies God by acknowledging His supremacy over the earth and the wonders of His creation. Through the use of striking metaphorical representation, the poet expresses his love and reverence for God. Beyond celebrating the powers of the Creator, the poem offers a deep philosophical reflection on the temporality of life on earth by suggesting that human beings are but travellers whose higher purpose is to return to God. This assertion is demonstrated in the eighth stanza of the poem: “We are but travellers in time,/ Summoned before the blank page of His creation,/ Our footprints dissolving into the sands of the earth”. In “Hasad (Envy)” the poet examines the inimical implications of envy. He asserts: “Hasad dims its eyes to the fluorescent of poetry,/ blind to the dotting birthmarks of stars./ Hasad smells the incense of grace as an insecticide steeped in pain”. The poet notes that envy blinds the individual from seeing the privileges accorded him/ her by God.
In ‘Language of Spirits’, the persona speaks of the language of spirituality in healing afflicted hearts, calling on the spirits to cleanse the earth of grief. He enthuses: “In this layered bulb of dreams,/ the language of spirituality is simple—/ a whisper of winds that heal orphaned wounds”. All the poems in the first section of the collection accentuate the role of spirituality in the affairs of man. The persona highlights the importance of having a strong spiritual relationship with God. They are poems of devotion to God.
“Rivers of Grief” is the opening poem in the second section of the collection. It is a mournful poeticizes a mother’s sufferings. It is also a celebration of her strong spirituality and ability to persevere in the face of adversity. It is a remarkable tribute to a mother who has endured life’s fangs. The first stanza of the poem reads:
The smile that grins from my mother is an epileptic
mask—
unstable, like the swaying waist of a bridge.
Her womanhood, burnt by the red stains of abuse,
bled rivers into the drought of her prayers.
Yet she is thankful,
thankful to the spirits of ancestors inhabiting her
body.
Salihu’s fine construction of language to achieve heightened poetic effects can be seen in this poem like in most of the poems in the collection. For example, the brilliance of the following lines “Her womanhood, burnt by the red stains of abuse,/ bled rivers into the drought of her prayers,” cannot be lost on the reader. It is genuinely a remarkable poetic way of describing the depth of suffering the person’s mother went through. The poem ends on a night note with the persona celebrating his mother’s victory over her woes, a result of her trust in God. The poet declares, ‘No longer will she bury her healing in shadows,/ but let her grief stretch out with the dawn, /unfurling in the yellow smile of morning./ At the lips of dawn.’ Salihu’s fine expression can be seen in ‘A Prayer for the Soil’ an existential poem depicting the humiliation of a poor family at the hands of society. The persona narrates the story of a striving family under the care of a single mother who is constantly mocked by society and whose daughter ‘Uwa’ is forced into prostitution by poverty to earn a living. However, the same society that is quick to judge a single woman without supporting her readily attends her burial, a situation the persona views as hypocrisy. The stanza below captures the humiliation endured by the children and their mother:
Recalling the intoxicating memories: the years the
earth swallowed our dreams into its thigh, the years
our ears feasted on the epileptic whispers of
neighbors:
“Bastard children of a single mother,”
“Failed mother with failed kids.
Perhaps, attaining respite, the persona declares in a beautiful expression “Now, we amalgamate our broken tears into water—/ a waterfall of gratitude”. Salihu’s use of metaphors and imagery in fortifying his messages is a prowess, not many budding poets are blessed with. “Mama (Mother)” is an ode to a caring mother who gave her all for the growth and happiness of her children. Having attained success abroad, the grateful son looks back with inexplicable gratitude for the unconditional love he received from his mother. It is a celebration of motherly love and sacrifice. The persona opines “And even though I am far from the lips of my homeland,/ The lamp of her eyes traces my every step:/ To man, to God, to the bridge in between”. The persona continues, “In the redness of her grief,/ her lantern eyes wandered into a local store,/ Asking a stranger if they knew of work for her graduate son”. Every stanza and line of the poem adulates the sacrificial love of a mother who gave her all for a grateful son.
In ‘Songs of Spirits’, the persona offers a scathing commentary on the dystopian state of affairs of his homeland. Through individual plights of the characters of the poem, he paints a vivid picture of the pain and suffering in the land. The persona who seems to be in the company of other people probably friends or family recollects the once ugly life they lived. The pronoun ‘we’ further suggests that he is speaking on behalf of others who share in the memories he recollects. The first two stanzas of the poem illustrate the crux of the poem:
As we sip the silent air of night,
we levitate into the powdered consciousness of
memory.
We recall how the basket of a woman’s womb
spills treasures from a crippled country:
the conjugal divorce of spirits and souls,
the hallucinating ecstasy of poverty’s song.
In the poem, the persona chronicles the struggle of African migrants who left their home countries in search of greener pastures in a foreign. The persona highlights the sacrifices migrants make to find a better life in strange lands. Specifically, he mentions cities like Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Dundee in Scotland where they have gone in search of meaning and purpose they couldn’t find in their homelands in Africa. however, the stanza below provides a profound insight into the minds of African migrants according to the perception of the persona:
Here we braid our journeys into the scalp of your
cities
Each strand, a memory of what was left behind
Every twist, a grace of what is yet to come
And beneath this shredded skin of new beginning
We wear our obstacles like Medals.
In the final section of the chapbook Healing Songs, the poem ‘Dear Boy’ the persona pays tribute to the boy child, urging him not to despair in the face of the hurdles of life but to brace up to the challenges and conquer the world. It is an inspirational poem that promotes the agency of the boy child in a world in which the boy child is a victim of circumstances. Perhaps, inspired by the supporting system available to the boy child in the West with the hostile conditions in Africa, the persona asserts:
Here,
A boy child finds the courage
To unearth the moon of his destiny anew;
His reflection becomes the lantern of the sky,
His inspiration becomes the tears of the glen,
His rejuvenation becomes the dawn over lochs.
In what seems like a call on the boy child to step out of his comfort zone and discomfort to make an impact in the world, the persona asserts: “So, dear boy,/ Clothe your silences in words,/ Drown them in ink,/ Let the world feel your tremor”. He further states: “Dear boy,/ Spread your empathy in rivers,/ Wake them in waves,/ Let every scar be met with change”. Salihu’s poetic brilliance cannot be overlooked, his sense of poetic aestheticism laced with nuanced linguistic dexterity is instructive.
The poems are reminiscent of the classical craftmanship uncommon among a large percentage of young poets who have ill-advisedly taken to the trending prose poetry of the American poetry tradition characterized by prosaic and market metaphors. Poetry should tug at the most profound emotion invoking the spiritual core of the reader. Salihu achieves this rare aesthetic depth with his brave artistic and witty manipulation of words to elevate the poeticity of his poems. He reminds one of the poems in the famous anthology, Poems of Black Africa edited by Wole Soyinka. Consider the following lines in the opening poem “Al-Khaliq”, “By His words, the oceans wake in waves,/ By His words, the clouds shed their veil,/ By His words, the trees cheer the wind”. Consider the deployment of anthropomorphism in the lines cited in which the “ocean wake in waves”, the “clouds shed their veil,” and the “trees cheer the wind”. This is a succinct amplification of metaphors and imagery to convey messages.
Rather than tell us how powerful God is and how He created the world and controls everything in it, the poet paints a picture that shows us the powers of God through the deployment of visual effects in the attribution of human qualities to inanimate objects. Another example is these lines in the poem “Rasulullah”, where the poet writes “But the droplets of your destiny still cling to my memory/ Like whispers trapped in the carpet of my tongue”. The poet displays a sturdy grasp of the ability to circumvent words to create resounding lines that linger in the reader’s mind. They make the reader ponder on the meaning conveyed by the lines. These beautiful lines are replete in the collection. Each poem has lines that arrest the reader’s attention.
In conclusion, it suffices to emphasize that Salihu is a gifted poet with great promise ahead of him. One can only wait to see what he makes of his enormous talent. It is also important to add that the work could have benefited from sturdier pruning, as there are editorial inconsistencies. Also, the use of punctuation is inconsistent; some of the poems are either not punctuated or erroneously punctuated, just as some lines are jarring. Overall, it is a fine debut and a worthy addition to the poetry space in Nigeria and the world in general. I would recommend it to all lovers of profound poetic expression.