Poetry demands of the poet an elevated consciousness of his own surroundings and of his inner self, a keener and deeper sense of his own state of being.
Emman Usman Shehu displays again and again in THE RIVER NEVER RETURNS, this consciousness of being, a deep immersion in surroundings, a pinprick sensitivity to everyday things and occurrences that the rest of us would normally ignore or overlook. It is the poet in him that drives and guides him to put these in our own
consciousness, to goad us to the awareness of new meanings to things and occurrences that confront us daily.
Shehu finds poetry in everyday situations and digs out meanings to things other mortals would call mundane everyday occurrences. The poet in Shehu sees the beauty of ordinariness and captures the poetic rhythm in life’s humdrum monotony.
In “Slice”, the second entry in the collection, Shehu weaves the simple act of slicing onions into the unravelling of an emotive poem which brings tears to the eyes.
The poet’s inner eye sees beauty, rhyme and rhythm in the ordinary, and captures and record it in time for all of us to embrace, hold and enjoy. This is a gift of the spiritual and the inspiration speaks of the deep thoughts and artistry of the works that spew forth.
Shehu’s deceptively simple lines engaging and recording the many experiences and vicissitudes of life is a gift, a skill suggestive of the willingness and capacity to encounter life in its various turns and come out bruised or in laughter. All experiences are accepted and are the gifts that life promises.
“Reflections” goes deeper to explore the oppression of the time. It reminisces on roads not travelled and choices made in the course of time. This is the one for me, the one that examined for me the true reflection of our passage in this realm. Life is fleeting and transitory and the choices we make on the way finally define who we turn out to be with our “miles of crusty memories”.
In “Double Empty”, Shehu examines the destitution arising from widowhood in our society, a sore cultural marker of the heartlessness of our culture. The widow is not only left broken by the loss of a husband and provider, she’s also broken by a society which sends her away without inheritance. The poet captures in a few lines the cultural issue that has drawn so much acrimony and bitterness and remains unresolved In our society today.
In the poem “Earth Knows”, Shehu examines the unresolved conflict of predestination, the futility of the human effort to change the course of the earth and the unyielding passage of time. We are a product of the earth after all and will in time end up in its bowels. The earth knows this.
“The earth already knows it will swallow all that spring from it”.
This theme is continued and reinforced in the title poem “The River Never Returns”. The inevitability of the conquest of nature overall. Nature never reverses its course, just like the river, its power and majesty even in its simplicity overwhelms everything that stands in its way. The river never returns, nature’s will must be obeyed and nature like the river patiently and inexorably flows to its fulfilment in eternity, the wide, open and endless sea.
The most evocative poem of them all by a long mile will of course be “When The Little Man Spoke”. It is a heart-rending eulogy of Kenule Saro Wiwa, the pipe-smoking writer and activist for human and environmental rights in the Niger Delta. This tear-jerking poem by Emman Usman Shehu brings back to us in bold relief, the life and times of Ken, his bold and everlasting strokes in creative writing and the struggle for the fair treatment of his people which caused and ended in his death. Shehu captures it all in this evocative poem, wringing tears out of words, reminding us of promises made and not kept and the unforgettable injustice of it all.
It was not for himself alone he spoke Watching nets rise from rivers barren Withering plants on once fecund land”
This is Shehu’s fourth publication in poetry, each one an improvement in depth and technique on the last one.
Shehu has come a long way. From the dominant playwright on campus, a kind of counter-culture icon and a man who left so many other more rewarding options for a lifetime in the arts, this is an offering to the world for the gift of the muse.
Basil Okoh is a writer, editor and media consultant.
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