A Song As I am And Other Poems by Mabel Evwierhoma

‘A Song As I am and Other Poems,’ is a collection of non-form, rhyming and metering poems collection ranging from personal life experiences – the realities and expectations and society’s state of disorganisation with human playing the lead role in its destabilization; she gives readers, divided and heterogeneous insights and flavours. She writes evocative and touching poems that draws on all sorts of connotations as she does with varied conclusions.

One thing she makes very clear in this collection; Mabel is a mum, done this and done that about being a wife; about birth, marriage, the ups, then downs that goes with nuptials. Has experienced wars, work, survival and she sings about them all. Her poems about her experiences and concerns on motherhood; watching children grow, experiencing love and loving her maternal environment are my favourites.

There are some really enjoyable poems in this collection: including ‘... A Song As I am, To Be A Woman, For Monrovia, Nuptial Counsel, Separation.’ I particularly enjoyed The Lunatic that partly reads - ‘...Fleeing/Reluctant givers/Scanty bins/Dump sites and/Waste watchers/He crosses to Seme without a visa/Half clad/Buttocks bare/More fortunes to seek from/Resources refuse/And willing givers,’ and this is so because I have never stopped to wonder and marvel at how the insane, left to wander without care or restrains in Africa, survive.

The collection captures, wonderfully, the everyday family and other relationships, intimately; vividly with some very good descriptive touches e.g. writing about the war in Liberia, she writes 'Not a – waring/Not a – whoring/But a – sorrowing/In this war of the mindset of men.’ or when she advises 'To be a woman is not an hour’s metier/To be a woman is no mean task/A fate, a destiny, a life of so many loves-/Gone stale, sour and bitter/Look, listen and learn.' She manages to penetrate, captures and expose the heart and soul of feelings.

In the poem ‘A Song as I am,’ in particular, we have a poem about a desirous personality, aware of occupying a space - a maternal space - that should not only be acknowledged, but respected - she tells the story with a significant punch-lines. And when she wants, she skids up a notch into romanticizing utopianism.

Mabel clearly is one of those fortunate writers who happened to have living and living experiences in the right writers’ dosage, who is endowed divinely and almost certainly have added and still adding as an academia, deservedly, degree of schooling achievement necessary to be able to articulate these experiences into poems. Her writing in this collection shows her; a writer, competent, credible, confident, and a craft woman at work.

‘A Song As I am,’ the poem also raises interesting questions about culture and the life we live, in general - for instance: who decides what is good for the woman and are they right? And are we, the generality of people and society, getting richer or poorer for it? Have we through a combination of selfish longing and the persistent that a section of the homo-sapiens race be dominant, and the other half systematically dumb, richer and better off today? Even as now, some measure of corrections are being made as few of these others are able speak loud in the western half, unlike, in Africa and Asia, where the shackle have only been loosen, not taken off. Which is one reason, given the power, I would will this collections be made a best seller, be recommended read in all post primary schools. Because this is the sort of books our children should read so they know to feel loved, shown how to love and expectations in love.

My overwhelming feel of the collection is of – beautifully crafted free flowing conscious thoughts and inspirational.