Poetry

Once upon a poet, there gleamed a wordblazer.

“Testament of a mad man” is the trail of fire that his poetry aims at tracing in his readers’ minds to burn them clean.

Samuel Ayoade’s collection commences with fits of fiery passion to rise crescendo to a pyre which turns out to be a bonfire. Beginning with an extended metaphor on the David versus Goliath theme, the author then offers five ardent love poems, before spreading into thirteen short pieces on a paradox called Nigeria and culminating in sixteen longer satires on the present demise of his country.

The poet flares up in flamboyant flames of poetic indignation to expose what he defines as madness. But whose madness constitutes the central question.

“Life is a dead zone”, he states. “Death lives in our veins.” The scorching violence rampant all around him feeds his most sarcastic lines, as many scorching assessments of the situation. Poems such as Cashivorus, Polimatics or Evolution of Snakes denounce poverty, inequality or corruption in a mock scientific way whose causticity feels utterly enjoyable…

– Brigitte Poirson