Words have weight—Stephen King
There’s an attempt to make words light & light-hearted in this collection of poems & short prose. The book comes with a playlist that immediately gives a preview of what Amife set out to achieve with her first body of work. Blanket Me, by Hundred Waters, is the perfect template for Little Words, intimate & haunting, albeit in a soft, carefree way. The works in this collection seek ethereality—to make naturally complex themes weightless and deflate dense philosophies.
Little Words is about feeling things—fleeting things. An attempt at permanence. Savouring seconds, relishing the challenge of recreating footprints that have been washed off the shores, & memories that time has faded. This book engages seasons & events in retrospect, with a clear understanding that there is little that can be done to alter certain experiences. The poems/stories try to relive adventures, urging readers to feel the moment to the brim.
The collection starts with ‘Born’, a quick opening, an eagerness to make stories. The allure of this little piece is in its paradoxical exploration of the transitory nature of life—a swift braid of birth & death. It admonishes readers to live & leave an impression. ‘Simplicity’ is an excursionist into childhood—folk games, mud food, rag dolls, & zero worries. Beautiful innocence.
Amife Sabatina takes us on a reflective tour of love, nostalgia, self-discovery, identity, & mental health in 22 poems interwoven with 22 short personal essays across eleven chapters. The number of chapters & placement of illustrations are slight hiccups in the narrative flow. There seems to be some restlessness to the arrangement of the visual & literary art pieces—it has a feel of a teenage journal. This solidifies my theory of a writer trying to capture time & emotions before they diffuse. Yet, there’s this sweet freshness to the mutiny, an ambitious blend of imaginative cocktails.
The author’s voice is tender & honest, almost naïve. Her verses are gentle, simple, & vulnerable. Her prose is effortless. Amife manages to shawl her (or the persona’s) fears & anxieties in soft metaphors—employing the mundane as therapeutic kits. In ‘Letter to My 10-year-old Self,’ the persona reminds us of the need to enjoy the little things & find pieces of light in the prominent gloom. You will grow to accept the duality of good and evil and find your safe space in between. You will learn to adapt to weather, to disappointments, to people, to broken dreams.
Such is the dreamy nature of Sabatina’s prose—sleek & poetic. She continues, You will fall in love. With art and good meals and full moons and pleasant music and strangers who smile. In the poem ‘The Smell of Books,’ she indulges in the crispness of pages & an opportunity to be transported into new realms, oblivious of the immediate surroundings.
This writer doesn’t shy away from Hard Things too. Lunging into the waters of identity in ‘Colonialism: The Remainder Tools’, she tries to walk the thin line of traditions—inbred & inherited. Where’s the home for the mental migrant? How do I agree I am home when two places feel like home? When I am an eluding, cheating husband who sneaks quietly up the creaky stairs in the middle of the night. She continues to interrogate identity in ‘Who Are You?’, I don’t want to be anything…I am simply not in the mood, definer, to let my feet touch the ground.
Just like that, thoughts continue to float, like rebels, defying definition, defying nomenclature. From finding comfort in love to seeking the arms of oceans to craving life-saving hugs. Hug me like I’m air/ And you’re desperate to survive. The little things take centre stage in ‘Idling’, with words lazing on the page, affirming sweet nothings, and wishing the world stops spinning momentarily.
But also, quite a few of her works focus on the pain of growth—growing out of things like friendships, absence, & your own skin— & healing. Growth is chaos, happiness is fickle, & heartbreak is proof that you were once in love. Such is the ironic nature of Sabatina’s philosophies as boldly expressed in Little Words.
I like to watch things bloom Come into their true and full selves But I cannot say the same of myself My blooming looks like tears And anxiety And depressio
(Excerpt from Growth, page 72)
Amife Sabatina’s works show a deep appreciation of nature, beauty, & dreams. Romanticism, according to Waqas Ahmad & co, in their publication, Escapism in the Poetry of John Keats and Akhtar Sherani: A Comparative Study, is the most everlasting element in every literature in the world. The works in this collection are laced with elements of escapism, as obvious in the poet persona’s love for books, water, flights, road trips, & sunsets. In ‘Rain’, the poet says, Put a book in my hand/ And watch me fall in love with life. In ‘Learning How to Live’, the poet is learning to treasure the minor wonders like the smell of rain & learning to fly like a bird, leaving heavy things behind. Sabatina navigates the imaginative universe to escape the gloomy realities of life. She seeks solace in passion, away from the world’s attention, in gardens of memories & delightful companies—to her, happiness is paramount.
Amife pours out her mind in poems as you would in stories. There are a few times when the introspection could have been concise; adopted figurative images & let go of the restraints of abstracts for more specific, unique experiences—times when devotion to thematic obligations could have been sacrificed for artful metaphors. But there’s a consistency to the voice & tone, mild & thoughtful, hugging the edge of monotony.
Healing is an expedition—one the book isn’t afraid to embark on across its pages. The writer also reflects on death in ‘The Fear Swap’, though more a self-charge to live, to pursue every opportunity & exploit every single inch of time. ‘Big Wild World’ is my favourite poem in the collection. The first stanza brings Natasha Bedingfield’s Wild Horses to mind.
Wild world, I look upon you with great lust The kind that the ocean has for shore
What’s there to life if there’s no lust for the wild, for shores & kisses, for songs & wildfires? Afterall, life is either fear or presence…
Jide Badmus is an engineer and a poet inspired by beauty and destruction; he believes that things in ruins were once beautiful. Exploring themes around sensuality and healing, Jide writes from Lagos and tweets @bardmusHe is the author of several books including Obaluaye (FlowerSong Press, 2022) and What Do I Call My Love for Your Body (Roaring Lion Newcastle, 2022). Founder of INKspiredng, Poetry Editor for Con-scio Magazine, mentor in the SprinNG Fellowship, and member, board of advisors for Libretto Magazine.Badmus has curated/edited several anthologies. Twice Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize nominee.