“i am broken
in places
i didn’t know
existed” (broken too many times to be patched one last time)

Ogundare’s exploration of grief is revelatory. With an eclectic mix of 33 powerfully emotive poems and yet noncomplex language, “Grief Diaries” transports us through a vortex of parental loss. It is a poetry collection as much as it is an attempt to configure the mind to accept the brutal finality of death—a mutely pompous death that offers no explanation and tenders no apology whatsoever to the living. In “broken too many times,” the speaker is stripped bare and caught in a process of involuntary self-discovery: “I am broken/in places/I didn’t know/existed.”

Contrary to Anna Swir’s statement, “In poetry the wound is continuously postponed,” Ogundare pries open the wound and magnifies it. The wound is pried open not as an act of courage, but in obeisance to the excruciating demand of pain—to be felt. Hence, the speaker is not simply ruminating on past pain felt but is experiencing and narrating the pain as it happens and travels and transforms. The beginning poem “in lieu of a proper poem” lays bare the condition of the speaker and begs the question: Is somebody so riven and battered by pain able to compose a “proper” poem? Judging by Wordsworth’s standard of poetry as a release of powerful emotions “recollected in tranquility,” the speaker ventures upon a skin-deep critique of the poem as it happens by announcing the absence of this tranquility or a unified mind:

“there is no poem here
only lamentations
& ruminations
of a grief-stricken soul
words sewn together
sewing together
tatters of my soul
making whole
my mind’s fragments
there’s no poem here
only the language of pain” (in lieu of a proper poem)

After the introduction/invitation provided us by this opening poem, we begin to encounter the exhibition of various forms of grief. Here, grief is dynamic; ever changing, ever becoming, to the bewilderment of the speaker. This continuous becoming is evident in the opening lines of “the grief that has its chokehold on my throat”:

"the grief that has its chokehold on my throat
has moved down to the pit of my stomach."

In this poem, grief is a nemesis that possesses a strength beyond the control of the speaker; it is like a deadly virus that ravages without being generous enough to offer complete extinguishment, a torture session: “(it) has wrestled me to the ground, paralyzed/ my body & left me into a heap…barely alive.” In “a body at war with itself” and “they asked me how she is,” grief has transmuted and fits into the role of an instigator: “your absence has set/my body on a path of war against itself. / I am a city under siege from within its own walls.” One can easily imagine this “absence,” this grief, this nothing, deriving voyeuristic fulfillment from the desolation of the speaker, who is plagued by a vigorous denial of reality: “my tongue is heavy, it refuses to speak/of you in past tense/my mouth muscles revolt.” And,

“they asked me how my mother is.
& i answered.
she is asleep….
she’ll wake up soon.” (they asked me how she is)

In “olubi,” denial has faded, and the speaker becomes a griot chronicling the history of their mother’s battle with death. The speaker implies that death has occurred as a result of the victim’s forgetfulness: “but you stopped visiting the trees,/stopped hearing how strong you are/you allowed death best you this time.” The poems following “olubi” take the form of elegiac laments infused with lyricism so that the poems become less fragmented and more soulful and somber. It is here that we find acceptance—however inconsolable—and a recollection accompanied by the extolment of the deceased. In “Elegy for Mother” we encounter lines like: “the elephant that rustles the trees of the forest/no one sees you and wonders./what happened to the elephant, why is it on its back?” and “the elephant has fallen in midday/ I take up this dirge to escort you home/ great one.” By the speaker’s use of “home,” it seems that an epiphany has occurred; the crossing of an epistemological border that has been previously inhibited by the abundance of grief. The place of death, as it is portrayed in Yoruba mythology, is that of a passageway that enables the circular flow of life; therefore, the speaker’s mother has no longer been “defeated” but has ascended into ancestorhood. The body becomes a cage, and death becomes a victory:

“adieu mama,
you are finally free of mortality’s
restraints
transfigured, you leave
behind this cage
as an insignia of victory.” (adieu mama)

The poem, “twenty questions,” is one of frustration at the persistence of the mundane in the face of immense grief. The speaker has suffered a great loss, but the earth continues to revolve around the sun, and the world continues on its indifferent course. It is a frantic probing of the overbearing insignificance of the speaker’s pain: “why are the birds still chirping?/why is the universe not walking with a stoop?” The speaker, like a lot of the bereaved, expects death to be grander and urges the world to reflect the quaking of their despair. Also, “twenty questions” brings to mind the popular “Funeral Blues,” by W.H. Auden, in which the bereaved speaker takes on a more assertive tone than Ogundare’s by dishing out roles aimed at involving the indifferent world in their grieving: “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,/prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.” Grief, here, is demanding—it desires to be acknowledged. It also involves a kind of myopia, whereby the world is perceived only in relation to this confounding loss. 

In all, Ogundare has artfully made a statement on grief and the art of grieving: Like matter, grief is indestructible; transformable. “Grief Diaries” is a non-complex exploration of highly complex emotions. Without hinging upon unrecognizable abstractions, Ogundare plunges—soul-deep—into his subject matter, accounting for its intricacies and multifarious manifestations. It is a well-ventilated museum of misery. 

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James-Ibe Chinaza is a Nigerian writer and hobbyist photographer. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Isele Magazine, Arts Lounge, The Shallow Tales Review, Kalahari Review, Agbowo, Fiery Scribe, Cons-cio, and Brittle Paper. She was shortlisted for the 2023 Sehvage Literary Prize for Creative Non-Fiction and emerged as second runner-up in the 2023 Ikenga Short Story Prize. She also emerged as a finalist of the 2023 Kikwetu Flash Fiction Contest. She served as the prose editor II of The Muse Journal No. 51, and currently serves as the Assistant Editor of The Muse Journal No.52.