Book review:
Title: How Does the Rain Sound?
Author: Barth Akpah
Publisher:Kraft Books
Pagination: 98
Year of publication: 2023
Reviwer: Henry Akubuiro
In the lush field of contemporary Nigerian poetry, Barth Akpah occupies an endearing section of the matted grass. He waters and tends to the roots to grow vigorously. He has demonstrated this since his debut collection, Land of Tales (2009) and its orgasmic sequel, How Does the Rain Sound?
The Akpahistic poetic project is a laborious exercise in motion. Carefully, he strives for a plumerian charm and grace in maintaining an artistic balance. At the intersection, lyricism melds with pyrotechnics, with a sense of atavistic solemnity.
Typical of Akpah’s poetry, How Does the Rain Sound? brims with topical national and international conversations, from Nigeria and West Africa to the rest of the world. The poet feels the burden of human failings across divides. Just as he is flummoxed by the foolies of African politicians, the poet gritches over sorrows created abroad and sown across borders, spreading agonies to mankind.
Akpah’s verses are weaned in a “poetry farm” with his blue marble upon which seeds ride on harmattan’s breeze and stoop to stubborn roar. In “Before Adam”, one of the poems in the first section, the bard tells us he is a born poet from the word go, and his imaginary give-and-take with the Almighty God prepared the ground for his artistic voyage in a fragile world.
The poet’s musings on the streets of Nigeria begins with an anecdotal opening with surfeit of animal metaphors as he paints a picture of dystopia. For example, “Our land breathes in ashes and dances to the rhythms of our pains.” A poet who detests politicians and their empty promises, Akpah uses “We got the chance” to weave a disturbing image of how the fortunes of Nigeria plummeted between 2015-19 when a gentle looking bull entered a china shop for fun, but left behind broken smithereens and tears
He captures the fraudulent visitation as “sweet-tongued”, and, within a short time, the search for Promised Land, for the citizens, moved to and fro in want of a victory dance. “But, edgeways, we lay scammed to one corner,” he writes. The change the people wanted turned out to be an undesirable change. Hence, “The land and its people are here like stagnant ponds, hoisting the green-white flag with a two-faced punchline of the next level’s friendly pain of our Villa’s concierge.”
This hackney of political debacles runs through the next two poems – “2019” and “2023”. For the latter, “next season came with dumps and pre-positions as the saintly gangs mounted the stage for post-positions. “2019” recalls that this second coming was “another song for victims of ballots and bullets, a ritual of seasons, clean to the eyes without prophetic bites. The speaker is saddened that the much anticipated Next Level was nothing but an orgasmic dysfunction. In the poem, “2023 –Before falling off the patch”, the poet talks about a new desperation by political jobbers, whose ominous entry announced a looming sad epoch. He reminds us that the hopelessness of Nigeria is emblematic of a piece of farmland where feral pigs haste to feed against the run of play.
Akpah is a master chronicler of national malaise. Reading his poems, he follows the tapestry of history, reinterpreting it in a condensed manner while inviting you to see through the vistas and the paradox of the ridiculous social order. He, thus, sees Nigeria and its scheming leaders as a piece of clothing without hems. The poet is amazed at the unending buffoonery and the stoical crowd of onlookers and cheerleaders.
The MMM scam, which dwindled many citizens of their hard-earned money; the Okada/keke ban and the difficulty of adjusting to the change, amid transportation challenges; SARS and its brutality on the youths, are among the social issues treated in this section. The poem speaks to us about the youths’ audacious #EndSARS protests of 2020 against the “wolves in garment” and the background leading to them. Of course, “their codes of conduct are expired…” The voice here reminds us sadly that, while these police dogs chase rats, “honoured burglars grace the streets in convoys”.
Akpah’s “Musings on the border line”, like those from within, look at the world as a village in which what happens elsewhere affects humanity one way or the other. Take, for instance, the xenophobic attacks in South Africa whereby black South Africans harassed and killed fellow blacks from other parts of Africa. In “The K-leg south of Africa”, the African wayfarers’ dreams, which are cut short, are depicted. The Russian war in Ukraine, captured in “The streets beg for tender eggs”, epitomises that war leaves many casualties who never bargained for it.
One of the greatest achievements of this collection is putting the COVID-19 pandemic in a historical, social, health, cultural and economic context. The poet qualifies the virus as the “dropping faeces of fetid smell.” While it lasted, the world became a floating river of cadavers. Nicknamed “Coro” in Nigeria, the poet describes it as an unwanted visitor. Though it was offered kola nut, pepper and salt, he sat on the feet of death saying: “Kola or pepper, I do not seek but the blood of the land.” Described also as a new god in town, Akpah synthesises despair with a sense of humour, but it’s his play with words, his sordid recollections and profound imagination that define his bardic genius.
Akpah is also capable of romantic verses. He remembers when Cupid calls and its vibes. He sings of when love whispers and its allure and even pens a letter to his tender heart. Liberia, where he teaches and lives, isn’t left out in his versification. Using Fish Town (Liberia) as a metaphor for seduction, the poet depicts a visit to a coastal community with its natural ambience and seductive waistlines on the beach can be tempting to a cerebral mind.
Akpah’s How Does the Rain Sound? compels attention. Among the current breed of Nigerian poets, he has taken his craft to an enviable, quintessential pedestal, away from the pedestrian.