Title: Prisoner of Love

Genre: Poetry (a chapbook)

Author: Ibrahim Olawale

Publisher: The Roaring Lion Newcastle LTD

Date: 21st August 2021

Reviewer: Enang God’swill Effiong

This Enslavement Called Love in Ibrahim Olawale’s ‘Prisoner of Love’

‘The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love ’___Philip James Bailey

‘Prisoner of Love’ is a poetry chapbook comprising eighteen (18) poems which have all been spurned in simple, short, yet dexterous diction by a fascinating poet, Ibrahim Olawale. He dedicated this chapbook to everyone whose powerful lids were worn off to the enslavement which love poses. So, to the poet, he is rooted more in the throes of love rather than the supposed joy it brings. As a result, this work will give a specific look at the poems in the work, since they are all channelled into a subject matter though slightly different themes.

In ‘Hopeless Romantic’, the poet shows a situational irony in the three stanzas of the poem which come as a progression. The poet persona in the first stanza personifies his heart, which rejoices whenever he beholds the sight of his lover. He proceeds by stating how his heart is swallowed underneath by her love and how his life is knotted with hers till death. Yet, in each stanza, he repeats he is a hopeless romantic which serves as irony for the former.

‘Prisoner of Love’ captures the theme of unrequited love. The persona pleads to his lover to ‘release’ him from the ‘prison of unrequited love’ so they can be one again. Here, he indirectly speaks of the pain an unrequited love creates to the one who loves. For me, his choice of words like ‘prison’, ‘release’ and so on fits the title with its imagery.

When love is concerned, disputes are meant to visit. However, when the variations of visitors are not properly taken care of, ‘love’ is bound to weaken or die. This is what the persona preaches in the fourth poem ‘Our Love’ as he submits in the last stanza: ‘Our love went south [‘South’ is a metaphor for decline] /that morning I read your farewell note.’

‘True Love’ is ironic. It shows how the persona went for ‘true love’ and died trying. And on his gravestone was inscribed: ‘He lived and died for love.’ The inscription signals his disguised bitterness for ‘true love’ as it is a sarcasm.

In ‘Cheating Ex’, the distinctive element is the anadiplosis which the poet uses in each stanza to emphasis on the wrongs of a lover’s ex even after marriage. The use of the element is coined from every noun to non-finite verbs from the first to second line of each stanza respectively. For instance, in ‘cheater/cheated’, ‘liar/lying’ etc.

In the ninth poem, ‘Seeds of Love’, a pair of lovers’ affection was built on fragilities (that is, ‘sinking sands’). And when trials (‘hail’ and ‘sandstorms’) came, their love was destroyed. Its fall was compared to the collapse of a sandcastle when a sandstorm comes. In other words, the poet subtly admonishes readers to have solid ‘seeds’ (foundations) of love.

‘Cobwebs’ gives a mental visual image of an abandoned, old and in myth; a haunted house. It shows how the persona’s home of love has become ‘haunting memories’. The first stanza adopts the biblical allusion of the ‘Parable of the Sower’, where some seeds which fell on the soil grew but the weeds and thorns choked it and it crumbled to death. Also, the last stanza says: ‘Our home of love has been overtaken by cobwebs;/all that’s left are haunting memories.

One of the other messages in this chapbook Olawale tries to tell is the possible deceit of a sugar-coated mouth. This he kicks against in ‘Flowery Words’, for his ‘heart is not to toy with.’

In ‘Single and Winning’, Olawale disapproves of people who think singles are lonely and cursed. He promises that though being single could be overbearing but it won’t weigh him down as he is contented and happy.

The last poem to be discussed is ‘Shadows from the Past’. This poem sings of what an unsettled, bitter past could do to love. At first, peace was broken and the lovers held to hate. Then, ‘The shadows from the past were haunting/ and overshadowed our blooming love.’ The last stanza says that when a terrible past shows up, one lover becomes so embittered which shows through her shaking voice.

All in all, Olawale, whose facial beauty didn’t disappoint through his work, has shown that he is a writer that has come to stay. He has proven that love can be sweet and it can also be bitter, just as the epigraph (from Philip James Bailey) postulates. Therefore, let all those to whom this work is dedicated to find both solace and a guideline; for love will come again. And when it does, you can be a captain with knowledge on how to sail through the ‘hail’ (thunderstorm). But for now, kpe!