A Review of Colourless Rainbow…

Book: Colourless Rainbow: Poetry of My Childhood
Author: Senator Ihenyen
Publisher: Coast2Coast, Lagos, 2011
Reviewer: Peter Irabor, Benin City

When, in March of last year, I came across Senator Ihenyen in Benin City where he currently studies Law, he came across to me as a promising young man, although I could not place him at the time. And so when a month later he contacted me to have a look at one of his yet-to-be-published works of poetry, I considered his request without any restraint. That the manuscript was edited by a respected critic and editor who before his death was the Publisher at Coast2Coast strongly increased the urge to ‘’take a look’’ at Senator’s work. Close to a month later, I was glad I took that ‘look’!

Forthcoming from the Lagos-based Coast2Coast Publishing, Colourless Rainbow: Poetry of My Childhood is going to debut as Senator Ihenyen’s first book – a collection of poems. It is written in seven movements symbolic of the seven colours of the rainbow. According to the author, the ideas behind some of the poems in this collection go as far back as childhood. Thus, the innocence of childhood is captured with the central image of the rainbow, but without losing grip of the disenchanting and ‘colourless’ realities of the political and socio-economic experiences of his country, Nigeria. The thematic preoccupation of the work finds expression in its seven movements – The Mirror, Cameleons, Camoufladge, and Images on the Breaking Walls of My Heart serving as an interlude. Other movements include Masquerades, Crossroads and The Tide.

Interestingly, each of these movements is arranged in such a way that the colours are respectively depicted in ascending order. Also, each colour used in any particular movement symbolises the overriding emotion, thought and meaning of the poems. For instance, in the beginning of the opening movement, The Mirror, Senator Ihenyen introduces us to the overriding meaning of the poems contained in the movement using the very first colour of rainbow, red, suggesting the predominant atmosphere of blood:

“…I long to see red in the rainbow, but I have found in its place, blood. See the blood on our faces in the mirror of rippling rivers, and the rainbow of better tomorrow being buried by the ashes of our burnt past. With the colour of blood, I paint the poetry of life.”

The rest of the six movements also begin in this uniform style in the ascending order orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet respectively. I find this profoundingly engaging and pleasurable! It seems to be a symbolic representation of the disenchanting feeling of the poet towards the discovery that what had appeared to him as the rainbow (the poet had always been fascinated by the image of rainbow since childhood, says he in the Preface) turns out to be a colourless smokescreen. This is what the paradoxical title of the volume of poems seems to suggest and reinforce.

Also, in the course of reading the poet’s completed manuscript, I noticed an unmistakable uniformity and continuity achieved in an uncontrived manner. Apart from the deliberate style of unifying the over 100 poems under respective movements, this can be seen in the predominantly masquerade-driven poems under the movement, The Masquerades; and the feeling of confusion and need for direction that run through the poems in The Crossroads etc. Also, this unity is centrally reinforced with the reoccurring image of rainbow in such a manner that if you ever begin to get used to the meaning of the symbolic rainbow, the poet twists its meaning in refreshing ways that captivated me as would be experienced in Searching, and many others in the volume of poems:

I search
for rainbow in the sky,
but there is no sunlight
piercing through the
raindrops

and I begin to wonder
where to find its colours –
colours of my heart, colours of my dreams,
my hope

In the emptiness,
I begin to understand
that if I could not look into the eyes
of the living around me
to see that the rainbow
gleams there too

I may never find the colours
to paint a better place
for you and me…

refreshing ways that shock, as experienced by me in one of such poems as Crossroads below:

Although now colourless,
Must we open our doors
To let the West come in
To take away our sun?

Although now colourless,
Must we open our doors
To let the East come in
To take away our rain?

Although now colourless,
Should we not close our doors
And with our sun and rain
make rainbows

And open our doors
For the world to buy our colours?

and a way that fascinates and excites, as seen in When it is not always Sunny, one of such poems below:

I had always thought
you were a butterfly
that had perched on the petals
of my heart

but when like a cloudy rain,
tears gathered in my eyes
pouring down on your flapping wings

your rainbow-coloured love
was washed away
to reveal a moth…

The poet also achieves continuity, an aspect I feel most poets of his generation rarely pay attention to in their usually hurriedly churned-out works these days. In one way or the other, I found that several poems in the volume do have a link with another. For instance, the poem, Tell Us at the tail end of The Mirror, the first movement, seems to express the overriding frustration of the persona towards the images reflected in the ‘mirror’ in the previous poems; while the last poem, We Must Be Reborn expresses some hope about this. More interesting, however, is the continuity in the thoughts and emotions in the movements, The Camouflade – about the despotic military era; and The Cameleons, centred on the deceptive democratic dispensation in Nigeria, an ugly situation rampant in Africa and across the world today. Sometimes, I find this sense of continuity even at the level of individual poems. A good illustration is the last line of the poem, 1960: “And the nightmare goes on”, interlinked with the opening lines of Another Nightmare which is the poem that follows the previous:

I have nightmares
Nightmares, not of vultures screeching for flesh…

Communication between a writer an his reader has always been an effective way of passing the message intended by a writer across to his readers. I find, very fascinating, Senator Ihenyen’s engaging and sustained communication with his readers. It does not only demonstrate that the poet thoroughly enjoyed the pleasure of writing these poems with a profound release of imaginative energy, but also draws the reader into the evocative experiences. The poems show us images, play out sounds and sometimes aesthetically project original and meaningful free verse forms. He does not try to tell us his mind through what a Nigerian literary critic has described as ”intellectual subtleties” and prophetic ”philosophies”, but he bares his mind, heart and soul to us. The poet effectively communicates with us, stimulating our imaginations, emotions and thoughts, and responding to them in someway. For instance, the last stanza of Colourless Rainbow, the opening poem in the large volume, taunts our stimulated reactions with the words:

…if my pen pierces
like a spear and my letters stab your swollen pride,
then, let your boiling blood rise.
Let it rise, repainting this colourless rainbow
with the colours of our stubborn dream…

In the same way, the last poem, The Parting Kiss in the interlude movement (Images in the Breaking Walls of My Heart), seems to be giving the reader a parting kiss from the romantic lines in the closing movement, back to the sensational movements that follow:

this parting kiss
taking my breath away,
killing the call.

Lastly, the poem, ‘The Beginning’, which ironically ends the volume, Senator Ihenyen tells us that:

It is only the beginning –
not the end. As long as the thunder answers the flashes of lightning
in the rumbling sky, this ink shall rush with the rain
washing away the haze of the harmattan.

As a whole, beauty, thoughts and emotions are artistically expressed with refreshing and symbolic imageries, sensuous sounds and graphic free verse. There seem to be an effortless unity of style and theme in most of the poems, although there are very few poems I think the young man could have weaved better. But don’t take my word for it until you get your hands on the volume of poems when it gets out there! Although, poetry, they say, does not sell (particularly in Nigeria where the reading culture has been described as poor), a good book should sell itself. Senator Ihenyen’s work looks like one of such books. As soon as it hits the book stands, be the first to grab a copy so that you won’t be the last to have a good read!

Although it is certainly too early to say, but with what I personally consider to be a strong debut when Colourless Rainbow: Poetry of My Childhood hits the stands, this young Nigerian writer may just become one of the newest voices of Nigerian poetry. I will keep my fingers crossed for the reviewers and critics to take him on, as I also patiently wait to see another volume of poems or creative work from him. I have thoroughly enjoyed reviewing the completed manuscript; you should enjoy reading the published version when the publisher of the award-winning titles, The ”Pregnancy of the gods” and ”Treasure in the Winds” by Odili Ujubuonu, Coast2Coast, blows the whistle! Of course, I will get my copy as well – I do not intend to kill the book industry that feeds me…well, if not economically, intellectually!

Peter Irabor is a literary enthusiast based in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria.