Book Title: Knifing Tongues
Author: Egya Emmanuel Sule
No. of Pages: 80
Genre: Poetry
Publisher: Aboki Publishers
Year of Pub.: 2005
Reviewer: Ojo Olumide Emmanuel
Introduction
Knifing Tongue by E.E Sule is a dramatically written Poetic collection, which explores the concept of animalism to describe the deceptive and depraved nature of humans. Animalism can be seen as a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value of sentient beings. Sentient in the sense that they can feel pain and pain is one of the validations of the existence of a being. Animalists consider animals as individuals. Animalism is an expansive dimension of the humanist doctrine, as such, animalists, consider critical thinking and evidence above established doctrine or superstition.
It is based on the premise above that E.E. Sule crafted an experimentally written dramatic poetry where animals were given a kind of Poetic Consciousness and realization, which allowed them to decry the subjugating, domineering and dastard behaviours of humans, not just to themselves but to animals and to nature as a whole as depicted thus: /…and protestant animals have forested their fangs and claws and beaks within hairy skin of earth, they have taken their proud eyes away from man’s enviable glory, they have carried their restless legs from man’s organized clime./ [5-6].
As mentioned earlier, the work opens with a dramatic confluence of thoughts where some animals suddenly realizes their long years of foolishness and servitude under the control of man and at that conference of tongues they began to bespeak the nature of men. The work bewails man’s attributive tendencies to be uncanny and unfeeling towards others /man, ah man! creative finger of god, left to frisk like mouse’s arrow on the landscreen of earth…he lords earth in its submissive iridescence, scrapes earth’s head with tongue scissors, inhabits earth’s hair with arrogant urine, dewombs earth’s stomach with acidized sperm, now earth lies in the careless geography of man’s sterile palm…/ [1]
The criticism of man in this sense is a clear-cut distinctive analysis of man’s conduct within the social, physical and political geography of the universe. Man is the centre of every event in the world and the results of his action and inactions affect every element of creation.
The collection is a social commentary on Nigeria and the generality of human conduct. It embraces the sociological doctrines and protest-like ideologies of the Afro Juju Music icon Fela Anikulapo Kuti as alluded in the portion of the poem /in this saxophone of Fela’s tonguesword across military gospel in this penmusic of swift’s provocative fingers dazzling through lunatic muse of our ears are flung open like the mind gate of new Christian convert to hear fresh testament of de-man-ed animals/ [13-14]. The strength of this line lies in the conversion-like de-man-ing of the African and specifically Nigerians as Fela has always voiced in his days and the allusion to the Christian doctrine of living above the “flesh” at salvation. Flesh according to the Bible is depraved, selfish, uncaring and filled with lust of eye, lust of the flesh and pride of life. This is the default nature of man and it takes a higher order of reconfiguration and reflective thinking to de-man man from his nature.
The collection is fine-tuned with nine discourse narratives. The corrupt and vain-glory nature of man is aptly captured using animals in each segment. The dog speaking in the work said: /man’s throat is a river flooding philosophy on its path man’s throat is a fire consuming conscience on its path and throat serves stomach and stomach serves flesh and flesh imprisons man…/ [27]. The donkey described man’s irrational lust thus: /man’s strength is there in his penis where he orbits Humanscale in strides of lusty immorality/ [39-40].
The donkey also decried man’s quest for beauty /man’s beauty is fickle artificial face of nature muddy in chalky make-ups, man’s beauty is all scum of machined dross in noisome artistry…/ [pg 45-46]. The donkey magnified the magnificence of natural beauty above the artificiality man has chosen to embrace and imbibe.
In the sixth narrative, the pig exposes the spite of man against his fellow/and man, ah! inner skin of his smile, is scowl howling his fellow hu-man…inner finishing of his love is hatred hurling his fellow hu-man/ [55].
In the seventh narrative, goat as personified by the poem mocked the Nigerian political elites by exposing their pot-bellied desire for riches at the expense of governance /seen asorocked men whose neck carry plump ridges on their backs… you must have seen wild tongue-ing ambition of poli-poly-ticks working hard to build familyscape out of nigeriascape/ [63]. This shows the corrupt nature of Nigerian Politrikcians who set their family first above the citizenry by claiming to be self-made messiahs of the poor masses by using religious platforms as pulpits for swindling the masses /ha! there is corpse of god in the vigil of those nationalism prayers…/[67].
In the eight-poetic narrative, the cock exposed the actions of entrepreneurial pastors who are merchants of Jesus’ salvation for the fattening of their pockets /and pastor is eternal tense weaver of god-flavoured syllables able to string pieces of gold in prosperity gospel/ [72&73]. The work also lamented the religious crisis that has continued to engulf the Nigerian state /we don’t hurl god at one another in complexion of clashing fires/ [73].
In the last narrative, the Lion concluded the social theatrical dissection of man establishing three treatises. First, man is full of fakery while animals are naked with truth. Second, man is full of fiction, cannibalistic with damned conscience while animals’ daily quest is survival. Lastly, man is greedy by nature/man is a two-edged knife on his own conscience/, therefore, the animals must /cuddle earth fluvial wisdom and animalism must arise to save the world from falling/ [80].
In conclusion, this work is a delicate poetic narrative which condemns the human nature, the ills of our contemporary society and what we must do to salvage the future. Beyond the aesthetics of the poem, the poet brings to consciousness the need for man to be more considerate on his fellow man and every other thing within his environment.
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Ojo Olumide Emmanuel is a Nigerian poet, playwright and book editor. His works have appeared and forthcoming at INNSAEI Journal, Feral, Quills, Poets in Nigeria (PIN), WRR, The Nigerian Review (TNR) and elsewhere. He is an Assistant Editor at The Nigerian Review (Teen/Interview section). He was long-listed for the ‘Poets in Nigeria Student Poetry Prize’ (2020) and he was shortlisted for the Arojah Student Playwriting Prize. He is an Alumnus of the SprinNG Writers’ Fellowship.