Book Title: Ellipsis
Author: Adeola Juwon Gbalajobi
Publisher: The Roaring Lion Newcastle
Year of Publication: 2021
Number of Pages: 58
Genre: Poetry
Adeola Juwon Gbalajobi is a new wine in an old-bottle. “Ellipsis” the collection of poems published by The Roaring Lion Newcastle is his debut, however he has been published in several literary magazines and he is widely known in literary circles amongst the new generation of Nigerian poets who have taken poetry to the next pedestal with their sheer artistry.
Ellipsis is a collection of poems that captures the human experience in its various form; Love, Lust, Depression, Pain, and Hurt. The collection is divided into three sections and the theme of love permeates the first part of the collection.
Adeola knows his audience well, and he kick starts the collection with the poem “To the Girl who taught me that ruins can be beautiful”. With powerful lines:
I bared my body to you –
A cosmos of ruined cities.
You packed the rubble &
built dream castles from it.
We are accustomed to the tune in this poem where imperfect love is captured without abasement. When in love, it’s okay to be vulnerable, and when it’s true love, dream castles can be built from the ruins of our past life.
Almajiri is another poem that echoes the pain of goodbyes. The persona in this poem is enmeshed in the hurt of a love gone sour:
Goodbye is stuck in my mouth like
The echo of a familiar song.
Your absence beckons the darkness.
Adeola writes with powerful imagery that resonates. We all know how hard it is to say goodbye. Even when we know that we have lost the plot our love.
To further echo the sentiments of the lost cause, Adeola’s metaphors strikethrough like a dagger to the heart:
I don’t know how to stop loving you;
dabs of your memories are
sewn to the helm of my mind &
I can’t cut them off.
The pain of letting go is hard enough, and this poem is one that many readers will see a part of their story neatly weaved into.
The second part of the collection is very brief, but the spirituality dripping in this part resonates.
In the poem, “A Song of Repentance” the poet makes his intentions clears in these lines:
My soul is a whore, lover,
woo me with the sweetness of your word,
chase away other lovers & their enticements,
fill my eyes with your pleasures alone.
In a world with many conflicting pleasures fighting for our attention, the persona in this poem is surrendering all to their God. Knowing they can’t fight this battle alone. Talk about simplicity, vulnerability and conveying heartfelt emotions using poetry as a device.
The third part of this collection is an elegy to the storms we face and the demons causing chaos in our head. “For Ellipses” made my heart quake and limbs tremble at the travails of broken boys.
Broken boys are pallid rooms full of horror.
Their skins are scriptures of scars –
The testament of waivers they got from Death.
How do you court life when Death is wooing you,
When he promises stillness to the storms in your mind?
The poet captures the travails of broken boys vividly in this poem. The agony that rages through their mind, the storm that wreaks havoc to their souls. The imagery in the line “How do you court life when Death is wooing you,” left a mist in my eyes, that these emotions are real, these choices to either brave the storms or like Adeola said in the final lines “Broken boys are ellipses,/ flowers that wilt in the dawn of their bloom.
Ellipsis is an engrossing debut from a gifted poet.