By Chukwuma Ajakah

In a new collection of poems aptly titled, Whispers of Rainbow, African arts crusader and environmentalist, ItunuOluwaseunFaseeyin, explores the symbolic relationship existing between culture and nature in contemporary societies.

The anthology, Whispers of Rainbow features poems that depict Africa’s rich cultural and natural resources. Subject matters explored in the collection include marriage, dispute resolution, funerals, punishment for crimes and tradition. Celebration of culture echoes in the following poems: Finding a Bride, I Do Not Like a Lawyer, Itinerant, The Plea, Do Not, The Immune, Wrappers, Throw the First Stone, Darkness, Her Mother’s Eyes and I’ll marry you.

The poet portrays the theme of love for nature through emblematic titles like Count the Stars, The Sunset, Tell the gods, Tales of the Moon, Rainfall, Africa, Africa, My Africa and The Mango Tree with a Mouth. Each poem either depicts the beauty of nature or celebrates the poet’s cultural heritage.

In the poem, “Finding a Bride”, the poet explores the central theme of parental influence in marriage. The persona featured in the poem laments over his dilemma as he awaits parental-cum-societal approval for his prospective “bride”, saying: “At age 33, I still/ Find comfort in the arms of solitude./ Don’t mistake me for being single…/I have a girlfriend… I fear my parents/ will unlock the box of “no”/ “She’s/ bigger than you.”/ “she’s too light-skinned. Is she mammy water?”/.. I would love for my lady to be curvy. / For her skin to be brighter than a million fire flies./ To be with my heart desire/ Without my parents’ blessing/ Is difficult to achieve./ Not in this lands anyway.”

Itunu’s poems are laced with figurative expressions that add a measure of complexity to their simple language. As exemplified in the poem, The Sunset, the poet makes elaborate use of figures of speech such as metaphor, simile, hyperbole and irony: “The sun rises like a pillar/ And falls beneath the earth./ It goes down like a giant/ Refusing to die from a thousand cuts./ Like a king, loved by many,/ Hated by all./ Bitter words are poured to kill the heat./ To knock it off its throne,/They pray for the rain./ The rain never stops,/But the sun is no more/ To take the flood away.”

Further complexity in language occurs as the poet combines divergent linguistic devices to realize some poetic effects as instantiated in the poem, Finding a Bride which is fraught with a plethora of punctuation marks-quotation, inverted comma, hyphen, question, etc, mingling with dramatic devices such as humour, inversion, metaphor, rhetorical questions and apostrophe to mystify the poem.

There is a juxtaposition of culture and nature in poems like Rainfall which focuses on the lifestyle of farmers in an agrarian society.

The thematic preoccupation of Rainfall includes hope, environmental degradation, disappointment, frustration, communal life and conflict between nature and civilization. Some of the themes can be gleaned from the following excerpted lines: The farmers all prepare themselves for/ A fruitful year. /Bags are washed; and baskets/ Are carefully stacked for when the time comes. /It’s June, and rain has not shown its face./ The sky has failed to shed some tears./ The land knows when water from pipes are/ Showered on it./ A sacrifice is made angrily./ Our prayers are not answered./ This is no rain./ We didn’t ask for the flood/ To come take our food away.

Moreover, the theme of love is realized through poems like Uluoma, I’ll Marry You, Africa, The Mango Tree with a Mouth and Africa, My Africa. In the later, the poet decries the fate of the continent, citing its numerous challenges of bad leadership, poverty and backwardness: Africa, my Africa/ Soil soaked with resources/ Yet hungry//Africa, my Africa/ Blessed with people/Yet seeking good leaders//Africa, my Africa/ Hands soiled in dirt of hard work//Yet hands seeking comfort //Africa, my Africa//Stand and love yourself…”

The poet also explores the theme of marriage as an aspect of culture in the poem, I’ll Marry You which contains pointers to some practices that precede the consummation of marriages in certain traditional societies as in: “I’ll marry you/ I’ll take 500 whips/ at my back / I’ll wrestle with/ “A’dumu” the alligator/ I’ll get chased by cheetahs// I’ll swim in the rivers/Infested by mermaids //I’ll walk naked/ into the dark forest”

In the poem, “Tell the gods”, the poet portrays the central theme of rebellion which is depicted through the persona’s castigation of the ancestral deities for failing to provide succour for the suffering masses.  Except for the sixth stanza, Tell the gods is uniquely arranged in seven stanzas of two rhyming lines each: Go and tell the gods/ Death no longer scares me// Tell the gods/The evil forest is now a game reserve// Tell the gods/ The streams now have fishes// They no longer bleed blood/ The ground is no longer angry// They have no mouth…// Tell the gods/The rains have come, //because their seasons have come/ Not because they said so//Tell the gods/ They lied.”

In the poem, “The mango tree with a mouth”, the persona narrates how nature complements the socio-cultural environment to the extent of being privy to age-long secrets: “A mango tree/ Stands tall in our compound/ Its branches houses birds and humans// They all speak underneath her shade/ Unwind their thoughts while her leaves listen/ If it had mouth to speak// It will tell us tails/Long ago/ Stories struck out as myths// It will tell us/ Mama’s ghost still sings/ Her songs sonorous and melodious// It will tell us/ She litters the air with songs/Words wrapped in a box…”

While celebrating the beauty of nature as epitomised in “the mango tree”, the poet persona also  mirrors negative practices in the society, revealing such as domestic violence as unveiled in the following lines: “…She sings about papa/ Who beat her till her heart gave up/ She would sing about Ulouma// Her maid who fetched waters/ From forbidden streams// If the mango tree could talk/ It will whisper all the love poems/ Written to virgins// It will whisper the dark plans.”

Itunu’s collection, Whispers of Rainbow features diverse types of poems, including narrative, pastoral, dramatic, ode, didactic and lyrical poems. Ode is exemplified in the poem, Africa which reveals the poet persona’s sentimental attachment to her fatherland. In addition to the overt praises the poet uses on the subject matter, she personifies Africa, using the imagery of a resourceful beautiful lady as revealed in the following lines: “… She is a beautiful lady/ Carry a baby// Pregnant with destiny/ She walks round the street/ With few praises to her name// Call her blessed when you see her/ Under the scorching sun/Digging for crops// Call her blessed when you see her/She is strong, despite weakness/ Built with peace, despite her struggles…”

In another didactic poem, Tales of the Moon, the poet evokes the trappings of narrative folktales as she tells the story of the moon in folkloric lines that run thus: “I take a good look at the full moon;/ All I see are the pages of the stories/ My mother told us.// On nights like this,/ Our bodies would build/ A circular wall round my mother;/ Our ears would stand firm/ As she told us tales…/ Some of glee,/ Some of life,/ And some of death.// Before sending us to bed,/ She would remind us to/ Say our prayers, lest the/ Eye of the moon/ Suck us into a bad dream -/ A dream to be told/ On the next full moon.”

The culture of imparting moral lessons through traditional folktales is reflected in the didactic poems included in the anthology. A typical example of such is “Darkness” which the poet presents as a fable embedded with a remarkable dose of instructive messages: Mama told us tales/ Folk tales at midnight// Stories sandwiched with/Disobedient children who met their doom//Mama, never finished the series// It was always to be continued // She instilled fears /Fears that never went away /The darkness now calls me./ Mama’s ghost now haunts me…”

Presented as a sonnet, the poem, Our Father which portrays Africa’s socio-cultural realities, encompasses the themes of respect for elders, family life, child upbringing and traditional heritage. The thematic concerns of the poem are embedded in the following lines: “In our father’s house,/ Our knees must kiss/ the ground whenever/ Our lips offer up greetings.// We must not look into his eyes./ Elders shouldn’t be looked upon./ Our eyes must be buried to the ground,/ Only to rise upon being told…”

The poet employs divergent poetic techniques such as varied structural patterns, repetition, imagery, oxymoronic and metaphoric expressions in conveying the message and enhancing the aesthetic quality of the poems. For instance, the pronoun, “our” appears in virtually every line of the poem, our Father which is embroidered with images such as our father’s house, our eyes, our lips, his eyes, our father’s friends and our knees.