I think of unthemed submission as a dumping ground, which in the Yoruba parlance symbolizes tolerance and magnanimity. That is, accommodating all and sundry in their various fair and filthy versions. Unlike a recycle site that asks for specific items such as plastics only, or polythene only, here— we ask you to give us everything– the good, the bad, the ugly.
So, in this issue, while some poets take us through the path of death or dying, a few others hold our hands into love ponds. However, and coincidentally so—even in love, they all meet at a dark confluence, at the backwater of grief.
Grief. It has made man beckon at death in prayers. Sometimes, death is a relief from pain. And the strongest man is not one who take his own life, but the one who endures to live, and/or allow death come to him naturally. While endurance appears as a virtue, it is a troubling adventure. It is grief that we endure, not pleasure. And that's what Chinedu Gospel means when he says “pain is the root word for endurance" in his poem “Shadow of Sorrow in the Snow."
Towards the publication of this issue, the Masthead visited the Olúmọ Rock, from which this journal had its name. All that the tour guide had to narrate to us was history of escape from grief, how the Ẹgba People fled the Dahomey warriors and headed for the Olúmọ Rock for refuge. To leave the comfort of your home to live under the rock like reptiles is a story of endurance.
Whereas, every person called survivor has walked through the valley of death. Olumide Manuel put it succinctly in “Hallelujah, Disambiguation" that “The testimony of a black survivor is a bruised glory,” and goes on to chant the gospel of endurance when he says “...if we crumble, if I'm lurching for peace in bed of nails, the song is hallelujah still.”
To Abdulbaseet Yusuff, pain is to “Die before your death," is to "Embrace rigor mortis before the rigor" as in “The Recruit" where he relates the fate of joining the military of a country trapped in the web of systemic corruption. Emmanuel Mgbabor reminds us of End-SARS and the Lekki Massacre when he laments “Officer, these are country flags, not ak-47s.” Timi Sanni makes the night sunny with his “Query II," especially when he asked “What species is this living pain, or better, what is the madness of grief?”
Anything that causes grief or brings pain to humanity is as old as the universe itself. These disorders have always been the order of human existence, one that we fight from generation to generation; say oppression, terrorism, sickness, betrayal, heartbreak, etcetera. And they are not leaving the world anytime soon. This continuity is entrenched in the poem of Akpa Arinzechukwu where we read “...my wife swam out of grief victoriously, But sitting in silence, it seems we swam from old grief to new grief.”
In a world laden with more grief than bliss, where flowers no longer represent love but forget-me-nots left at the graveyard, what we need is the strength to swim, to endure and pray in silence, to beg the earth to tender, to sharpen our tongues with praises and soften our bodies with worship, to become god— sit in the heavens, perform miracles and answer our own prayers— that is, to grow in faith and change the course of our fate, because as Lisa Sammoh admonishes in “Faith Runneth Over, “miracles depend on faith to survive.”
Therefore now, rise up and follow the thirteen terrific poets that this issue has brought to guide you...