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A review of Daniel Ayodele Agbaje’s poetry collection, ‘From A Soul and Beyond’ By Abolore Folorunsho
IT is widely believed that poetry is life and a genre of literature that readers usually run away from. However, conventional wisdom should tell us that if poetry is life, logically readers who run away from it are merely running away from poets who are so difficult to understand or boring in the real sense of it because no living soul can run away from life.
Poetry is the song that usually captures a fountain head of emotions that, in general, can have a place in the soul. Great poems about life do not only open the door of the poet’s heart for the readers to foray, but they also allow them to explore their own desires distinctively. When such wonderful poems are written eloquently, the words become immortal which perpetually dwell in the heart of the reader.
A poet should always allow his soul to sing the song before inviting others to join him. He must make the first move with a good reason that is covered by a common interest.
A poet who writes without a purpose will always bore the reader. It is common to see poets, who delve on the theme of life,writing poems to warn, correct, instruct, inspire and motivate.
Daniel Ayodele Agbaje’s ‘From A Soul and Beyond’ is a collection of 50 poems published in 2022. They are well written to warn, correct, instruct, inspire and motivate the reader towards living a meaningful life.
With this collection, the poet has not only allowed his soul to sing the poems, but he has also eloquently invited other souls to join him hence the title, ‘From A Soul and Beyond’.
Definitely, the poet is set out to reach out to the wider spectrum of the society with messages that are imbued in some delicate but soft-skin words.
In this collection, the poet begins with ‘Open Mind’, which motivates the reader to acquire knowledge, and ends with ‘True Love’, which the poet uses to sing the praises of his lover and reaffirm his allegiance to love. Apart from the themes of Love and Knowledge, this great collection also delves into the other themes that can make life meaningful. Between ‘Open Mind’ and ‘True Love’ are the following poems, ‘Curiosity, ‘The Child’s Mind’, ‘Mystery and Survival’, ‘Warrior’, ‘Spring’, ‘Peace’, ‘Life is a Rose’, ‘Memories’, ‘Shining Living’, ‘Regrets’, ‘The Parody of Life’, ‘Tough World’, ‘Never Without Hope’, ‘Vulnerability of Children’, ‘Honour’, ‘I arise’, ‘Love is Strong’, ‘Culture’, ‘The Human Race’, ‘Childlike Wonder’, ‘The World’s Book’, ‘Beautiful Sunset’, ‘Dawn’, ‘Progress’, ‘To be a Poet’, ‘My Mother’, ‘Freedom’s Life Cycle’, ‘Being Black’, ‘Hidden Tears’, ‘Fear’, ‘A Poet’s Pain’, ‘Breathe’, ‘Corruption’, ‘A Leader’, ‘The Sun Rises’, ‘Lost Faith’, ‘A Poem Should’, ‘Night and Dawn’, ‘Euphoria’, ‘Freedom and Truth’, ‘Inspired by Truth’, ‘Father’s Words’, ‘The Miracle of Life’, ‘Destiny’, ‘Delight’, ‘Always Remember’, ‘A Long Road’ and ‘The Road’.
Analyses of all the 50 poems show that the poet is adept in using literary devices such as simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, repetition, oxymoron and exaggeration.
The collection also features some poems that are prosaic/narrative in nature. Though not written in paragraphs, they narrate stories rather than describing images or metaphors, and they also have characters. These prosaic/narrative poems are like an instructional manual for living a meaningful life.
In ‘Curiosity’, the poet employs personification as a literary device which connects the reader with the object that is personified, ‘Curiosity is the cat of my mind’ and ‘Curiosity sat in the middle of a flower’. This literary device helps the understanding of the reader on the theme of discovery, which can either be invention, the discovery of what has not been in existence or innovation, the discovery of what has been in existence. The first stanza of the poem, ‘Mystery and Survival’ is paradoxical, ‘What is it about us that cries for connection, and yet shies away from closeness?’. Here the poet uses paradox to create a rhetorical question. ‘We create barriers around our hearts / And then wonder why we feel alone. The poem depicts the harsh reality of life. Human beings only have to be resilient to survive.
‘The Child’s Mind’ is a poem that buttresses B.F. Skinner’s postulation, ‘Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything’. Here, simile is the device that the poet uses to compare the child’s mind to a sponge. The poet believes that the teacher’s job is to guide their curiosity to learn. The curiosity that a child employs to learn how to walk and talk without lesson notes should not be destroyed by the teachers.‘Progress’ is a poem that warns the reader against the danger of procrastination. The poet supports the wise saying of a great philosopher, Roy T. Bennett, ‘Don’t wait for the right moment, start and make each moment right’. The best way to start, according to Daniel Agbaje, is to start by taking a step.‘Father’s Words’ is a narrative poem. Father’s words are words of wisdom. The protagonist’s father not only talked tall but showed by examples, ‘For he taught me how to live/ By teaching me how he lived his life’. ‘He taught me how to stand up straight and tall/By standing up straight and tall himself.
In ‘Fear’, the poet re-echoes Maya Angelou’s ‘Life Doesn’t Frighten Me’, which is a poem about overcoming fear and not allowing it to become a master. Daniel’s ‘Fear’ shows how to conquer it by confronting it headlong. Daniel opines that fear is nowhere but resides within us. It tells some unpalatable things that we must not listen to.In this collection, there arepoems of national importance such as ‘Corruption’, A Leader’ and ‘Inspired By Truth’. In ‘Corruption’, the poet laments the state of corruption in the country and the dangers of recycling the corrupt leaders. In ‘A Leader’, the poet gives the reader some essential qualities of a good leader. But in Inspired By the Truth’, the poet admonishes that the bold must be inspired by the truth to be able to hold the leaders accountable.
In all, the poems in this collection are vastly inspiring and motivating, and affirm life as something to be journeyed through knowledge, love, wisdom, obedience and compassion. This collection cracks open the reader’s mind on how life can feel when things are difficult and how resilient the reader should be in facing the harsh reality of life. Interestingly, this collection closes with messages of love, a soothing balm on our collective wound. This collection helpsthe reader to feel heard and comforted, and gives voice to whatever hurts right now.Without any hesitation, I will recommend this book to lovers of poetry and those who are looking for ways out of their present predicaments.
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