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The Poet Of Dust

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Sidi is magical, unpretentious and radical in his conceptualization of poetry. It celebrates the allure of the poem. It equally teaches, elicits and mocks the philistine inquisitor. Through the employment of different poetic forms and styles such allusion, lyric, metaphor, imagery, allegory, symbolism, witticism, amplified by a sturdy narrative technique that sometimes calls to mind elegant prose. The Poet of Dust manifests varied influences drawing largely from Arabic, Greek and unapologetically imitates loosely classical English epics poetry such as Iliad, Odyssey, Beowulf, especially with its intricate metaphorization of the poet as “man and dust”.

And in conclusion, it suffices to posit that Umar Abubakar Sidi’s The Poet of Dust belongs to the neoclassical class of Tade Ipadeola’s Sahara Testaments, Ikeogu Oke’s The Heresaid, Amu Nnadi’s A Field of Echoes, and Ahmed Maiwada’s We Are Fish whose experiment with form, craft and style is grand. They are energetic in their bold re-invocation of the classical tradition of European form and aesthetics. Of course, if we have no tradition of our own to advance, emulate, or perhaps, cannot create our own, there is absolutely no wrong in impressing on the tradition that gave rise to our modern written literature. Sidi’s work deserves to be read for its own merit, because it is good.

--Syncity

Therefore, for the poet, the creation process is fluid, yet permanent, a combination of the solid and the liquid, a union of the permanent and the impermanent. More importantly it is organic, and has a beginning and an end. On one level, Umar Sidi sees himself as a poet of dust in that, he is the one that takes a basic ingredient of creation and adds it to another element to create a work of art. On another level, we can say that Sidi is on a quest to understand the true nature of poetry, but he will never understand it because good poetry is like dust, impermanent and non-solid, a symbol of emptiness and desolation. Thus Sidi’s poet persona, much the King persona in Ecclesiastes who after spending his lifetime searching for happiness, decides that everything “is vanity, and chasing the wind”, continually quests after the meaning of poetry, but he never manages to find it, instead ending up with nothing but dust. It is this feeling that is captured in the Peninsula of Poets II (pp 13-18):

---Thoughtivity

Umar Abubakar Sidi is most certainly not your everyday Nigerian poet for he has not only shown his dexterity,he has also shown a propensity for profound thoughts by tackling universal subject. I like his style of poetry, and appreciate his penchant for diction (except the salacious ones of coursewhere he seems to begiving the ‘middle finger’). His uncommonness as a Nigerian poet stems from his adoption of salacious lingual cum innuendos and imageries in discussing and analysing serious issues. A scatological study of the work will surely leave the analyst with enough material to work on.

It is quite evident that the poet is well-read for aside from featuring names of great poets in his poems, his language also makescleara long period of traversing in Islamic, Judeo-Christian, and philosophical spheres, which his writing profits from immensely. I noticed his inability to control his lines in certain instances where he allowed himself a forgetful basking in the poetic aura. However, this does not do much damage to his poems, neither do they hinder understanding. These can be understood as quirks, forwho truly is more human than a poet? I comprehend the poet’s yearning to break tradition, but he must thread softly so as not to bastardise the art of poetry. We could surely make do with less prosaic lines and bombast. Also, I would advise the poet to stick to single and striking titles, rather than reflecting confusion by using double titles for his poems.

Umar Abubakar Sidi’s The Poet of Dust is a collection I think will pass the test of time as most of its poems are tied to universal themes rather than epochal or societal related themes. Here we meet a young bard attempts to understand questions related to poetry, existence, creation, and of course dust (death). May this stunning collection be a rite de passage for thispoet,the world cannot wait to see what he turns his erudition and abilities to next.

--- Ubaji Isiaka Abubakar Eazy, Memorilla.com