The Waterman as a Spectator
A review of Echezonachukwu Nduka’s ‘Waterman’ by Michael Imossan
Echezonachukwu Nduka’s Waterman as the name suggests is a fluid collection as the writer swims through myriads of subject matters while allowing his musical antecedents and Christian background to permeate the poems therein, thus flowering each line with so much musicality and sonority.
Aside the musicality and the truism upon which most of the poems are hinged, Nduka shows mastery in the way he wields his poetic devices; using them in a way that is not too cumbersome or drowns the subject matters embedded in the collection.
Waterman begins with the poetic persona wishing to relive his childhood in a poem titled “The Child”. This gives a sense of the thematic preoccupation of nostalgia. However more relevant to the poem is the subject of innocence upon which the poetic persona begins the collection with. In the poem “The Child”, Nduka wishes to go back to a time when he was innocent and free of the burden of adulthood as well as the violence, hatred, racism and discrimination he will come to face in the latter parts of the collection. The positioning of this poem as the opening poem in the collection is then deliberate as it sets the stage for what is to come and reiterates the poet’s longing to be free of the anomalies of society. This is reflected in lines like:
“standing in the hallway / is the child I wish to become /…there are no ills from a poisoned fellow who sees / skin color as the enemy”.
As earlier stated, apart from the truism and the aesthetics of such lines, they prepare one for what is to come in the succeeding poems.
Nduka proceeds further into the collection with another poem titled “Mahler”. The poet explicates upon the vague knowledge of Africa to foreigners; how in a myopic sense they know only little of Africa and think of Africa as only that, yet to not be viewed as racist, most of them claim acquaintances from there. The deliberateness in the language employed by the writer gives unique aesthetic prowess to the poem.
“Mahler at the gas station knows the map of Africa / as drums and Afrobeats, giraffes in jungles posing for photos / and men in flowing gown the size of a bed sheet.”
These lines reiterate the vague and condescending knowledge of Africa to most foreigners and how so many Blacks in diaspora are viewed through such unhealthy lens. Nduka in a satirical way concludes that the character “Mahler” is lonely, thus keeps himself company by talking to customers or to himself, as seen in:
“there’s a piano waiting in his room, cold from neglect./ tomorrow, I will meet him talking to himself—aiming to fill up / life’s emptiness with a gas station nozzle”
Away from the metaphors captured in some of the quoted lines as a representation of the aesthetical dexterity of the writer, the sonority of the poem is aided by the narrative stance upon which most of the poems take. For instance, in the poem titled “Border Wall”, the poetic persona while recounting his niece’s hobby of building sand castles is also reminiscent of a time when he, too, did the same. However, his reminiscence comes with an elegiac tone. The constant invocation of varied forms of water like the beach, sea, seawater, waves, tears etc., gives the poem a calm and tranquil atmosphere upon which the poetic persona can travel through in the narration of his grief which is evident in the following lines:
“…I watched as my sandcastles become one with water. / I would build again and again until my tears, salty /as seawater, fell into new waves on the shore”
After this, Nduka then asks a striking rhetorical question that emphasizes the depth of his grief, “what if I had names for my losses at sea, would they have been returned whole”.
Another thing that reinforces the uniqueness of Nduka’s collection Waterman is the writer’s continuous philosophizing and questioning of some of the structure upon which society thrives, for instance the Church. Nduka does this stylistically by weaving a vivid fabric of imageries and employing nuances that aid the relatability of the poems.
For instance, in his poem “Margate”, the poet narrates his encounter with an Uber driver who is so devoted to God that he thinks a hurricane is God’s judgement. The crux of Nduka’s philosophy is spurred by many of such beliefs by those of piety—that such catastrophe can’t be the work of God.
Further into the collection, Nduka continues to question the authenticity of the Church and clergymen as he affirms thus:
“Do not ask me what the devil thinks of heretics. / I have sipped enough Liquor to see the thin / line between guesses and prophesies.”
Which suggests the fakeness of some clergymen who, in place of prophesies, give out guesses.
In a long narrative poem “Transition” Nduka asserts his place as a philosopher “what the old teacher said to me, young philosopher cannot be set to music” here, Nduka interrogates familial bond while also questioning the position of “the old teacher” which is a symbolism for the questionable beliefs of the society. In the interrogation of his familial bond, loss and grief, Nduka says:
“An aunt took a pose and asked for a quick portrait. / after a careful gaze, I painted my mother instead./ she looked at the painting, held back tears and said blood only conquers death in little drops”
The strength of the poem as well as other poems in the collection, are not only derived from their elegiac tone but also the aphorisms and philosophy employed by the writer as it’s explicitly tabled in the line: “blood only conquers death in little drops”.
In the poem “Transition”, to assert his stance as a young philosopher, Nduka is seen to disagree with almost every opinion from his “Aunty” and “the old teacher”. He interrogates the concept of poetry. In his words: “it is true the old teacher once argued that poems are fruits. / I disagreed. / Poems are poems, I said…” the radicalness of the poetic persona here suggests Nduka’s rugged philosophy of not just accepting or gulping down anything tossed at him. It reemphasizes his willingness to learn, unlearn and relearn. However, at some point in the poem, “the old teacher” asks him “who owns language? Native speakers or aliens and newcomers / to the tongue” Nduka does not respond to this question but moves on to interrogate the concept of worship and holiness as he asks:
“what makes a holy day holy?”
Another striking poem in the collection is the poem in which the entirety of the collection derives its name “Waterman”. In the poem, Nduka tries to explicate on the name “waterman”, giving reasons for it. He says: “No one mentions how flood disrupted your birth”. In the process of explaining the name, Nduka reinforces his idea of non-conformity to tradition.
“you were not for / drinking. / Not for ablution in the waking hours, not for washing the linens of traditions trapped in broken flesh”
In the above, the poet explains that, though he is a “waterman” due to the circumstances surrounding his birth, he is not meant for some of the things one would think water is meant for.
In the poem “Graph On Sand”, Nduka allows almost all the themes that are captured in the collection to permeate the poem. He does this by using keywords that are representative of the myriads of subject matter of which the collection cuts across. In the poem, one can see words such as “history”, “artifacts’’, “museum”, “language”, and “loss”. All these keywords used are pointers to the possible themes that could be found in the collection.
Nduka also interrogates the concept of aloneness in “Graph on Sands”—this aloneness is as a result of the losses he has encountered in life, be it that of a family member or that of his childhood innocence. The intersectionality or overlapping of the themes of love, family, loss, childhood innocence and aloneness is depicted in the poem thus:
“On a beach sand, a kid / plots the graph of family love”
“I watch waves crash, watch children snatched away to safety/ watch lovers / run towards high rising waters and love returns to me as loss. / receding waves wash the graph into sea. / I stand in surrender and walk back to myself”
One thing noticeable about Nduka’s Waterman is that the poetic persona mostly stands as a spectator, watching as things go on around him; whether it is the TV host spewing lies on the news about the government or the person in whom the priest is having an affair with or it is the memories of his childhood, Nduka stands a spectator—even of himself. This position allows for him to observe, philosophize and question the goings-on unfolding around him, both introspectively and retrospectively.
Overall, one must appreciate Nduka’s poignant narratives, his choice of diction and use of metaphorical devices that lend weight to the imagery of the poems in the collection. Also, the aphorisms and philosophizing by Nduka in Waterman implores the audience to question their previous positions on the ideologies upon which society thrives. By this, Nduka is calling the audience to follow him into the “Hallway” and see the child he wishes to become; he is inviting the audience to travel through the tranquility of his narratives and witness all he has witnessed, feel all he has felt—while allowing for his musicality to permeate the poem, thus forming a predominant trope in the collection.
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Michael Imossan is a Nigerian poet currently living in Sokoto where he is studying for a Masters in linguistics at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto. He is the author of the award-winning Chapbook, For the Love of Country and Memory (Poetrycolumnnd, 2022). He is the author of the gazelle, A Prelude to Caving (KSR, 2023). He won an honorable mention in the DiBiase poetry contest 2022. He is a finalist for the Lumiere Review poetry contest 2022. He is a winner of the Radical Arts Review poetry contest 2022. He was long-listed for the unserious collective fellowship contest. He was long-listed for the Nigeriannewsdirect poetry prize 2020. He is a winner of the Shuzia poetry contest 2021. His works are forthcoming from; Brittle paper, Frontier poetry, StrangeHorizon, Lumiere Review and elsewhere.
