A review by frida_kahlo
Your Crib, My Qibla by Saddiq Dzukogi
5.0
I received an eARC copy in exchange for an honest review from the University of Nebraska Press via NetGalley.
Have you ever felt so hurt that your whole body and mind suffer? Have you ever bruised so much that all your insides feel like they weigh a ton? Have you ever felt such a loss that your soul, your whole inner core cannot breathe, speak, live? These feelings are what Your Crib, My Qibla brings. These feelings are what this poetry collection carries, so deep and profound that the reader stays breathless, speechless, and in tears.
Your Crib, My Qibla is an experience of loss and suffering. A hard suffering one only feels when the beloved one is lost. And in my mind, the biggest loss one can ever experience in life is a loss of a child. My stomach was twisting and turning with each poem I read, with each line, each word. I felt a big lump in my throat and tears coming down my cheeks seeing (and feeling) so much pain, sadness, and grief in these poems. These words are so beautifully worded and painful; it must have been tremendous labour to give birth to such expressive stories and emotions while experiencing such excruciating situation (I can only imagine it).
The second part of the collection, in my opinion, bears deeper feelings and thoughts, as we get to see the imaginary conversation and exchange of impressions between the father and his lost girl.
I will share the poem that made me feel like a speck of dust in the wind:
One more painful portion:
My heart, my prayers, and my condolences to the Dzukogi family.
Have you ever felt so hurt that your whole body and mind suffer? Have you ever bruised so much that all your insides feel like they weigh a ton? Have you ever felt such a loss that your soul, your whole inner core cannot breathe, speak, live? These feelings are what Your Crib, My Qibla brings. These feelings are what this poetry collection carries, so deep and profound that the reader stays breathless, speechless, and in tears.
Your Crib, My Qibla is an experience of loss and suffering. A hard suffering one only feels when the beloved one is lost. And in my mind, the biggest loss one can ever experience in life is a loss of a child. My stomach was twisting and turning with each poem I read, with each line, each word. I felt a big lump in my throat and tears coming down my cheeks seeing (and feeling) so much pain, sadness, and grief in these poems. These words are so beautifully worded and painful; it must have been tremendous labour to give birth to such expressive stories and emotions while experiencing such excruciating situation (I can only imagine it).
The second part of the collection, in my opinion, bears deeper feelings and thoughts, as we get to see the imaginary conversation and exchange of impressions between the father and his lost girl.
I will share the poem that made me feel like a speck of dust in the wind:
The Breadth of a Butterfly
On Friday, her mother called to say Baha is ill.
Saturday, he was back in Minna, where
hospitals are places of hostilities. Hours before the doctor
came, nurses with their swollen eyes
looked for Baha's collapsed veins,
her eyes like light bulbs right after a power-cut
flicker back into darkness.
She is pale, her mother said. No madam she is not,
let us do our job.
But their job is to fail at doing their jobs.
Seated on a wooden bench in the waiting hall,
crammed with smell of blood and iodine
aging inside dumpsters, he recites all the prayers
his mother put into his mouth as a child. The cannula
after hours of looking for her veins
now hangs loosely on the side of her brow.
In his hands he transported her from lab to lab
for blood tests, until finally in a ward
they were given a bed. As her cry grew alongside the discomfort
in her body. His worries flock
in the air as he listens, wishing the pain was a pill
he could swallow on her behalf. His butterfly-
child is still colorful but unable to fly.
Because he doesn't like to drown in regrets, he pictures the flower
her mother planted into her hair.
One more painful portion:
If silence were a language prancing
out of a shadow's mouth, what will be heard
in your muffled prayers, anointed
with a thing of your ire, I know you often blame yourself,
but death wasn't in your breast milk
nor inside anything you fed me.
You wonder if God hears your voice,
Ummi, I hear you.
My heart, my prayers, and my condolences to the Dzukogi family.