In "Kàmbílí", adults, young people, and children are all affected by the realities of life. The poems, ordered according to emotions, moods, seasons, or stages of grief, are an exploration of social injustices, mental health, crime, desire, belonging, and heritage — asking such existential questions as 'who are we?', 'what are we here for?' and 'why can we not be left alone?' The poems in this collection are witnesses to everyone's lived experiences, begging to not be silenced.
My Review of Kambili by Obiageli Iloakasia
AUTHOR'S NOTE
AS WE DARE TO LIVE, MAY WE NEVER LOSE OUR WONDER!
Dear Reader,
One day, it will be clear to us that a lot has changed.
We would look back and feel no hate in our once angry hearts. We would smile, knowing that we have laugh and hope that we are going somewhere magical. a more colourful world.
outgrown those ugly feelings.
We would look at the things that threatened our experiences,
Maybe one day, we would break free from the chains holding us down.
Maybe one day, we would find
Maybe, just maybe...
Kambili literally means, let me live. This book is a beautiful collection of fine poems that tug at the heart and speak to the soul. The poems tell tales of survival, of living, of existing in one's skin. The book is divided into four sections, each section telling a unique survival story.
Survival i has beautiful compilation of poems about love, lust, memories, and in-between feelings. In I hate love poems, the persona wonders how love, that very strong emotion that's hardly explicable, can be verbalized in words.
And in Do not let me born, there's an appeal to a new love to please promise not to send them in that abyss they have just come back from.
In Survival ii, Iloakasia moves on to more sensitive topics; fear, depression, hope, and courage. Elements that stand in our way of living, and forces that drag us from the ground when we have fallen.
In the quest to live, we most times face challenges that threaten to weigh us down and stomp and kick us while we're at the lowest points of our lives. In I draw with hope from life's well, the persona understand that hope is what keeps us alive, and we can only succeed another day by keeping our hope alive.
Ruminations is a poem that speaks to my soul. It makes us wonder what the world will be like if there is enough kindness to go round, if we will forever be like children who have no worries, expect to live each day as it goes by.
But Survival iii tells the stories of cities and places and patterns we have encountered. The poems here talk about leaving home in search for greener pastures, and how the cities and places we visit, make or Mar us. In Preachers and hoodlums, the persona compares preacher's to thieves who steal from their congregation and bring doom their way.
I wrote a letter to mother is a poem about homesickness. The persona reminisces about the good times they spent with their mother and how they want to experience such blissful moments again.
Scarlet takes us back the memory lane, a fateful day Nigerians shall never forget. October 20, 2020. A day when citizens were shot for protesting for their freedom. A day when revolution swept across the nation. May we never forget the heroes who laid their lives for freedom sake. May we always remember.
The final section, Survival iv focuses on womanhood, abuse, and narratives that have carved a place in our hearts. In most parts of the world, women are forced to be heard only and not to speak. Women endure all forms of abuse and are cajoled into silence, while the perpetrators of these heinous crimes walk away freely.
In Conundrum, the persona wonders who will save her from her parents' endless nagging on when she will bring home a man.
Women are being taught right from childhood on how to be good wives to their tentative future husbands. It's as if women are made for men, as if their whole existence must revolve around men to be meaningful. But Kambili begs to differ.
The poems in this section challenges all the dehumanizing stereotypes that the women before us had to cope with.
In Apologia, the persona condemns the act or rape, and hurls all the blames on the rapist and not the victim.
A rape occurs not because of how the victim dresses, but simply the vile thoughts and lustful feelings of the rapist.
Only the rapist is to be judged when a rape takes place, and it doesn't matter how the victim dresses. The time is now teaches us that we don't have to postpone our living or happiness for the next minute.
All we have is now. We only have this moment to live, to laugh, to love, as tomorrow is not promised.
If you're a lover of poetry, then Kambili should make it to the top of your TBR list, because why not? The poems are beautifully written, and speak to the heart lucidly, without losing their essence. I'll rate it as 4. 8/5. The cover is too die for. In fact this book is beautiful in and out. And it is such a delight that I have the opportunity to share in this bliss, this beauty.
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