Book Title: Letter to Lilly
Author: Funmi Coker
Publisher: The Roaring Lion Newcastle
Year of Publication: 2021
Number of Pages: 60
Genre: Poetry
Fast-rising Nigerian Poet and Writer, Funmi Coker’s debut poetry collection “Letter to Lilly” pulls at the emotional heartstrings. This collection re-echoes powerfully the underlying message in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TEDx Talks—we should all be feminists.
The collection is a life-manual for the girl-child that preaches defiance against accepted order. From birth, the girl-child faces so many issues that puts her at a disadvantaged position, especially in Africa.
The collection begins with a powerful poem about “Identity” and the lines in the last stanza resonates: Listen, beautiful child,/to the deep-seated cries of your heart./Ignore rants of the ignorant/about confining you to the walls of a kitchen./Be sure to tread the paths of purpose/and wallow in happy fulfilment./ You’ll be fine./ Surely, you’ll be fine.
In some cultures, the tradition for many centuries is to confine a woman to the walls of a kitchen. But Funmi is encouraging women to find their own purpose and fulfilment. Telling them they will be fine. By re-affirming that they will be fine, Funmi gives a blanket of hope through the stanza that whatever choices women make, it will end up well.
For a change, it’s encouraging to see another woman who is using her words to lift other women up. Giving them a ray of hope.
In the poem “Daughters of our Land” the lines below are punchy and Funmi ends the poem with a rhetorical question. Which leaves the reader pondering.
The daughters of our land become/Women before they learn to become girls./That’s the way of our land,/But who made it so?
This poem carries a weighty message with the increased spate of kidnappings by bandits in Funmi’s home country, Nigeria, where being at school is now fraught with immense risk. Where girls are married off before they become women. And gender-based violence is still a deep-rooted occurrence, even on the streets of London to elsewhere around the World.
In the second stanza of the titled poem, “Letter to Lilly” the persona is speaking to girls: Girl, you are MELODY./You make music soothing./You are the dream, the dreamland./Never forget. Never.
By reminding girls of their immense value and capping it off by telling them to Never Forget. Funmi is telling the girl-child to always remember their worth.
Another poem that resonated in this collection is “Invention”. The poem queries traditions that have been shaping our world from time immemorial—Draw a woman, label her less than you would a man.
In this poem, Funmi is querying age-old traditions that have been the bane of many societies and ends with these lines: This is how tradition invented feminism/ & today we are all feminists.
As an example, a country like Saudi Arabia where women could not drive until a few years ago, we see how infringing on the rights of women has led to many people becoming feminists. When archaic traditions are in place, more voices like Funmi’s will continue to rise in defiance against the norm and fighting for the rights of the girl-child and women.
In the words of Maya Angelou “I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.” Funmi Coker has made her intentions clear with this debut collection that she is taking no prisoners and kicking an ass or two.