A new wave-making publishing company, Borodoro Books, based in both Lagos and Onitsha has just released the debut collection of poems by Isidore Emeka Uzoatu.

Credo, a poetic effort at Christian Apologetics, ponders on what Black African Christians should do with their unique past, to wit, let it pass into desuetude like the early missionaries to the continent were wont to, or take it with the present as part of a compact whole that authenticates their Christianity?

The search for salvation, the poet posits, should not be encumbered by individual circumstances of birth – as influenced as they have been overtime by world political conquests. Accordingly, he opines that every man, woman or child ought to have an equal footing in the economy of God’s grace for any religious message to be real.

Isidore Emeka Uzoatu studied Religion at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka from 1980 to 87; passing off a Doctorate for a stint in journalism. Retired to fulltime writing, he presently manages a trading company in Onitsha and has published a novel Vision Impossible (Lagos, New Gong, 2006). Credo is an extract from Broken Lines, his as yet unpublished collection of long and short poems.

Credo interfaces deep intellection with humour, touching on the raw engagements of religion, philosophy and traditional lore.

Father forgive me,

If by this

I do sin!

Holy Mo!

We are on the road to Damascus

Lost, flustered, bedraggled and penitent

A gourd of palm wine at hand…

Armed with a broad understanding of religions, from Christianity to traditional African religion, Isidore Emeka Uzoatu raises fundamental issues in the quest of man for spiritual security.

Supplicants at the altar

Of an anonymous Being

Else we be misconstrued,

Big time

Belief hooks our entire frames

Gripping lengths, breadths and cross-sections

Like the wedding wine at Cana

Reincarnated in bottles of

Chartreuse, Benedictine,

Altar wine, red alcoholic nectar

Brewed by and for omnipresent gods

And their ubiquitous messengers –

Ever as whimsical and wise –

Served at the head of the quest…

Credo in the end is a poetic rendition laden with recondite meaning and expression. The aestheticism matches the objectivity in such a way that a reader would always take away rich vignettes and layers of virtues. It makes for compelling vision.

The mist persists somewhat

And we can’t but joust with God

In this undeclared Armageddon

Before the dawn of the Apocalypse

For numbered are we, one and all

In the litany of the redeemed:

One forty-four thousand

In roll and number

According to the last book

In His son’s autobiography

Authored by surrogate hacks

Before the birth of magical realism

In the West and Middle East

Long after we had tired

Of weaning leaders of our tomorrow

On sacrilegious, diverse tales

About many-headed beings

Wise tortoises, devious spiders

And winged man-goats…

This new offering named Credo by Isidore Emeka Uzoatu deserves celebration in the annals of African poetry.