#54: My Neighbour, My Neighbour
A Review of Oyindamola Shoola's Face Me I Face You
Face Me I Face You is a collection of 35 poems exploring family dynamics, the lives of people living in a ‘face me I face you’ house, and the narrator's romance with her lover.
“There is a distinct feature of these living arrangements: the elusiveness of a commodity called privacy, creating an abundant market for the commodity called drama - unraveling daily from the intertwined personal lives and identities of occupants with diverse motivations.” - Foreword by @poetolu
Greetings, dear reader! 👋🏽
I hope you are doing well and taking good care of yourself.
Welcome to another edition of this spectacular newsletter.
The book is divided into three sections. The first one, Palava, is about family drama through the eyes of a young family member. My favourite poem in this section is A Visitor from Hell where a busybody aunty receives the best clap back when she asks someone when she will marry and bring children for her to carry.
“If hell needs fire to rent,
it would be from Maami’s sweet mouth
as she replied, Sola. when your husband returns,
the one your loudmouth drove insane.”
In the second section, Face Me I Face You, the narrator from the first section has moved away from home into a low-cost communal house popularly called “face me I face you.” The poems in this section explore the neighbours' lives, their interconnectedness, and the things they share besides the amenities at the back of the house. I can’t decide which one I like more between We Have Never Seen God and A Head For a Cap.
Bimpe, we have never seen your man,
but we know he wears a gold wristwatch
with a time setting for England,
long beard and a bald head.
In Water & Garri, the third section, the narrator has found love and the poems are about the romance between her and her lover. My favourite was Breaking Up with the Moon about the complexities of adulthood.
“we were once children
riding through the night, thinking
the moon ran with us.”
I bought this book after seeing a post by the artist who designed the cover and I’m glad I did. I love that it had illustrations, making it a fun read. It’s short and perfect for an evening, to wind down and laugh after a hard day’s job.
Have you read this book? What did you think about it? Leave a comment, maybe?😊
#53: The Beauty of the Mundane
A cup of tea on a cold day is an ordinary thing. Wrapped in a blanket while sipping the tea is as normal as it gets so it is not something many people would appreciate or yearn for. We barely see the beauty in such moments because we have had them too many times.
Reality of living in big cities!