Description
Book SynopsisCrafting raw memories into restrained and compact verse, D.M. Aderibigbe traces the history of domestic and emotional abuse against women in his family. A witnessing son, grandson, nephew, and brother, he rejects the tradition of praise songs for the honoured father, refusing to offer tribute to men who dishonour their wives.
Trade ReviewIn the urgent, abrupt, incantational poems of D. M. Aderibigbe, an essential gesture is simile: the explicit, striving word 'like' recurs often. And in every poem Aderibigbe thinks in metaphor. In a world of difference, amid unique strokes of memory and abandonment, violence and love, that action of likeness attains spiritual force."" - Robert Pinsky
""A debut that electrifies and ignites beacons of much-needed understanding through even the darkest of days. These memorable poems twist and tumble across entire countries, while making maps of love and heartbreak. A brilliant beginning. Remember this name: Aderibigbe."" - Aimee Nezhukumatathil, contest judge
Table of Contents
- Before Songs
- Questions
- Olumo’s Face
- Oedipus
- New Hell
- Love Story
- Love
- Eleos
- The Beginning
- Shapes of Our Future
- Elegy for My Mothers
- Easter Night
- Last Supper
- Pothos
- Before Me
- Sons
- Songs
- Ode to My Father’s Childhood
- City Boy
- Ode to Your First Cry
- Birth
- Gaining Her Virginity
- Art of Surviving
- My Mother Remakes That Morning
- Hungry Man
- Tiredness
- In Defense of Love
- Becoming My Mother’s Son
- Remaking the Day
- Mirror
- Hospital Window
- Separating from My Future
- in Praise of Our Absent Father
- the Cleaner
- in Defense of Silence
- To Be My Father
- Missing
- Pink
- Christmas Wishes
- Dancing
- Ode to His Absence
- Learning My History
- Matriculation Day
- Final Turn
- After Song I
- Last Call
- Last Forever
- Out of Water
- Mother, Again
- Lunch Time
- That Day, in the Lobby
- Our Legend
- Art of Unlearning
- After Song II (Recap)
- Ode to My Grandmother’s Mouth
- A Fulfilled Childhood
- Confession of a Hungry Son
- Prodigal
- Colors of My Childhood
- Acknowledgments
