‘A Day Shall Come’

A Day Shall Come is the full debut collection of poems  by Olalekan Joseph Ajayi, who according to the bio-brief on the back cover of the book, left majority of the poems unpublished for almost two decades.

Like many African poets of the present period, the 69 poems contained in the collection reflect on a broad range of themes, styles and ideologies. However, unlike the first generation of post-independence poets who chiseled their written word in line with British poetic tradition, Ajayi embraces the modern practice of speaking in the African voice without losing beauty in the process.

The subjects of his poetry range from the role of the poet in the society, social conflicts, personal struggles, and despair to love and hope. The poems in the collection are arranged along eight thematic strands: The [plight] of the Poet; the poet’s angst, Search for identity; redemption, love, hope and Life issues. The poet also pays tribute to people and places that have had an impact in his poetic journey. One unique thing that strikes the reader is that each poem has a distinct voice and the poet attempts some form of order by arranging the poems in each trend, to a great extent, alphabetically.

In the opening poem, “Rite of Passage” the poet passes through some form of initiation, preparatory to delivering the “laughters and sorrows of a million souls” that cling to him “like flies to an open sore”

As he rightly notes, “The poet’s journey is one of solitude”

The six poems under the category “The Poet” focus on the role of the poet. The standout poem for me in that section is “Guardians of the word”. In the poem, we read:

The word came pure, undiluted

It took form in the mouths of prophets

And was beautified by poets

The word stirred ink from quills

And caused panic among thrones

The word was born long before the sword

But the blade sought to murder the word…

Though in human form

The first word is not a human word.

In the section on “Angst” the poet pens 17 poems that touch on the poet’s anxiety, worry and fear. In “A difficult Path” the poet admits that discordant voices after the “muezzin’s call” and “the preacher’s bell” creates challenges on which path to travel. Majority of the poems here appear targeted at the political class, societal conflicts and the internal struggles of the poet.

In “Brother’s Keeper” he accuses the powers that be of seeking to crack coconuts open with the heads of poets after their tryst with strangers had blurred their vision and distorted their inherited history. He, however, warns in “Indignation” that:

“In this abysm of annihilation

When we thunder

Let no one brand us rebels

We are only poets”.

The poet asserts his rights in “Son of the soil”. Although they call him the son of a slave because his forebears bore a white man’s man, he declares that he knows who he is. In his words,

“I am the son of Ajakaiye!

Conceived in this land

The blood of a freeborn

Runs through my veins”.

Under love themes, we read about the pains of a wife following her husband’s neglect, the disappointment of a newly married man who thought he had married a virgin, a lover intoxicated by love and a vexed woman spurned for not giving birth to a son.

The poem from which the book gets its title: A Day Shall Come is on Page 83. In the title poem, the poet expresses hope that:

A day shall come when these fierce flares will cease

And fresh breeze greets our nostrils in the delta…

A day shall come when the swamp prodigal

Will return renouncing war for peace

A day shall come when this yoke of curse

Will be removed

And honey in oil’s place flows

In “The search” where the poet grieves about his lost Mother, “who rivals the wall gecko yet refused to return home from the sanctuary at nightfall,” he expresses hope at reuniting with her:

Now, my feet covered with dust

My hair turned grey

Conscience sets me free

I have performed a son’s duty

And this search will come to an end

When she walks through those gates again.

In the last part of the collection, the poet writes about other life issues in “Life” and pays poetic tributes to his teacher, mentor, helper and lands he had sojourned or visited.

Overall, the language employed by the poet is simple but defamiliarised. Each poem has a distinct African tone that is founded on reality. The metaphors are apt but sometimes harsh as when the poet likens a scorned woman to a sucked orange. Nevertheless the metaphors situate the poems appropriately in the locations they were either written or written about. Although he does not use much of rhyme, many of the poems are rhythmic and can be performed.

There is no perfect piece of literature, and A Day Shall Come also has its shortcoming. Ajayi’s poems do not follow the tradition of poetry, as some of us have come to appreciate the art. Admittedly, he acknowledges this shortcoming in the introduction. The masters of the art have always argued that a writer can only abandon form when he has demonstrated expertise on how best to write without it. Ajayi has exhibited such traits in this work. It would be nice to read more from this “old-new” poet and see how he experiments with traditional poetic forms.

That said, it will be fitting to adjudge the first effort [or do I say “offering”] of Ajayi as worth the effort. The poems grabbed my attention and I am sure would impress any lover of beautiful poetry.  Having gone through every poem in A Day Shall Come, I am certain that before long, Olalekan Joseph Ajayi, with great commitment, will etch his name among the masters of the art in the very near future.

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