By  OKOFU UBAKA

A Spring of Sweets is   an anthology of poetry written by Tony Afejuku. The anthology   comes to us as a phoenix of varied human thoughts recollected in moment of tranquility. A Spring of Sweets, can   better be  described as a diary of diverse human experiences in lyrics. Also, one may be correct to say that the anthology validates the immense capacity of the human mind to recollect and to reflect on avalanche of man’s unavoidable encounters with the many hurdles of life.

Perhaps, the reason this writer is of the view that the anthology is a mixed bag of exhortations of love, passion, patriotism, courage and admiration on one hand. On the other hand, the anthology contains poems that are lamentations of a failed state as a result of greed, nepotism and moral bankruptcy. These anomalies have found a futile ground   in Nigeria owing to man’s penchant for vices, injustice, brutality and self-righteousness . Basically, the human mind has exceptional capacity to wander, to ponder, to reflect, and to refract. Hence, Afejuku’s lines serve as a soothing balm to a troubled mind.

Afejuku is an Itsekiri patriot, a literary critic and a Professor of Literature with bias for poetry. Like Niyi Osundare, Odia Ofeimun, Tanure Ojaide and Ebi Yobo, Afejuku sees poetry as a medication for the ailing soul. He shares in the artistic ideology of bringing poetry to the door step of the people. His generation of contemporary poets are conformists of Niyi’s poetic manifesto which perceives poetry as a “ life spring”, (Alu, 2008). It is imperative to state here that these poets also imbibe Ojaide’s verdict of syntax of prose,  unpretentious, clear and simple lines, (Ojaide,1989). Little wonder, they steered away from the older generation of Modern Nigerian poets that are easily identified for the nuance of being ‘privatist’, willfully obscured and consciously apolitical.

Afejuku and his contemporaries are committed to splitting open the gridlock of formalistic evocations of the older generation of Modern Nigerian poets. Hence   the commitment   to communicate in the simplest and appropriate   expressions  possible. Afejuku’s poetry vividly conveys a piecing concept of evocative reflection of ordinary human experiences. Further, there is also a conscious effort by the poet to jettison Euro-modernist   poetic techniques of T.S Eliot, Era Pound, Christopher Okigbo and Wale Soyinka who were addicted to the poetry of obscurantism and esoteric motifs.

Afejuku’s poetry addresses a deluge of private and public themes. Particularly, issues on the state of the Nigerian nation and that of the prestine Warri Kingdom-his ‘poetic constituency. He is able to register a concern for the leadership inadequacies of the Nigerian nation while using provokingly-common   imagery. “An October Ballad for Fatherland” and “Epitaph on Two Nigerian Ex-Presidents” are two of such poems in Option 6 of the anthology which are lamentations of a morally bankrupt state such as ours.