World Book Day Recommendations: “Five Books I Love” — Rasaq Malik Gbolahan

For World Book Day, 2021 and #365DaysOfBookOclock, Rasaq Malik Gbolahan recommends five books that he loves.

Rasaq Malik is a graduate of the University of Ibadan. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Colorado Review, Crab Orchard Review, LitHub, Michigan Quaterly Review, Minnesota Review, New Orleans Review, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. He won Honorable Mention in 2015 Best of the Net for his poem Elegy, published in One. In 2017, Rattle and Poet Lore nominated his poems for the Pushcart Prize. He was shortlisted for Brunel International African Poetry Prize in 2017. He was a finalist for Sillerman First Book for African Poets in 2018.

Read him:

Iconography by Peter Akinlabi

This book combines the gift of language with the daring exploration of dark territories in a country like ours. Even the tender poems in the collection carry the emblem of songs, and they remind me of places known and unknown. Another pivotal thing about the book is how the author reaches the core of humanity through his piercing verses. His grief permeates the pages, and as a reader, I found myself returning to this grief, to the dark edges of sorrow, marked and unmarked, laden with personal and collective stories. And, yes, the book pays homage to the dead and the living, the razed towns and villages, and to places forgotten in history.

Exodus by Gbenga Adeoba

This collection of poetry radiates with loss. The loss extends to everywhere where the sea is a metaphor for death. Reading these poems, I am reminded, again, of the past and its relics of ruins, of the present and the perpetual quest to leave home through the most horrible way. I am nudged by the poems to return to the period when slavery reigned, a period when the middle passage consumed black slaves ferried through it. But at the same time, these poems render the grimness of these experiences in the most haunting way. The poems become necessary, and the pages open into what we must reckon with, because they are our stories.

I am Memory by Jumoke Verissimo

This is one of the first poetry collections that awakened me to the terrific use of language as a love song, and as an unflinching weapon to fight the inept political system that exists in a country like Nigeria. In this critically acclaimed debut, Jumoke explores these themes with the candour of a poet with a language chiseled to strike and demolish the houses of lies built by our politicians. The past collides with the present, and this is evident in poems in memory of the slain; Kashimawo Abiola, Dele Giwa, and other murdered names surface in this collection. Apart from this, Jumoke’s exquisite love poems are a delight.

The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison by Jack Mapanje

My first encounter with Jack Mapanje's poignant poetry began in a literature class. I was an undergraduate, and my love for poetry was immeasurable. I remember studying Jack alongside other African poets like Frank Chipasula, Niyi Osundare, Okot p' Bitek, etc. In Jack's poems, the angst of the masses thunders through the verses. The grief of imprisonment, of being subjected to the draconic rules of the political leaders reflect. Each poem carries a revolutionary cross, and Jack, having spent years in detention, knows what suppression means. This and other experiences occupy his poems. And, yes, his language is caustic. This collection is highly recommended.

Naked Soles by Gbemisola Adeoti

This is one of the poetry collections that dazzled me with language. The themes cut across different postcolonial issues mitigating our country. I remember where the poet persona likens the masses to ghosts, as these masses languish and wallow in abject poverty, and as they experience the sad realities of voting those who swindle the national resources. I remember gifting my copy to a friend, because I wanted others to read it. For now, I don't know if the book is still available at bookshops. If it is, kindly buy a copy.

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World Book Day Recommendations is a series of book recommendations made by African contemporary writers for World Book Day, 2021 and Book O’Clock’s anniversary.