‘Girls and the Silhouette of Form’: Of girlhood, womanhood and dystopia
By Paul Liam
POETRY explores human emotion and the social realities that form the conscious and subconscious experiences of people and society. It gives agency to the intricate vulnerabilities often oblivious to onlookers, requiring a deeper examination to unravel. Maya Angelou’s poems, for example, problematize the struggles of black American women to rise above the suppressive social and racial conditioning of the American society of her time. Her famous poem, ‘Still I Rise’ is an instructive affirmation of black femininity and excellence. Similarly, Sylvia Plath’s poems explore the burden of belonging and displacement occasioned by pervasive social realities that undermined her individuality and consciousness preceded by trauma and suicidal instincts as exemplified in ‘Lady Lazarus’. These examples illustrate the phenomenal power of poetry to authenticate the feelings, emotions, and plight of women in a patriarchal society.
Consequently, Star Zahra is a worthy successor to the generation of prevailing women who succinctly appropriate the instrumentality of poetry to accentuate the experiences of women who would have otherwise remained in the margin of humanity. Girls and the Silhouette of Form, thus chronicles the evolution of a young woman through a mist of experiences – sociocultural and political milieus – to assert her existence.
Girls and the Silhouette of Form explores a mosaic of experiences intricately woven around the tropes of girlhood, womanhood, and dystopia. It is a remarkable recollection of childhood experiences set against the background of the evolution of a poetic persona coming to terms with adulthood and confronting existential realities that challenge her poetic imagination of life. The persona is at one point immersed in girlhood reverie, womanhood and at other times she is philosophizing about life, love, death, and the deplorable conditions of the proletariat, especially children neglected by society. In the opening poem, ‘What a poem knows of death’, the persona introduces the reader to the death of a girl fascinated by “waist beads” and “ball pen.” Although the poem seems to be about a fictional girl, it is talking about the poet herself as a young girl who undergoes a sort of ritual to transform into who she is destined. The poem uses the first-person narrative technique which also suggests that she is an active character in the poem. This assertion is affirmed by these lines: “And when I felt the heat of the flames running towards me in excitement, I knew that my metaphoric self was soon to be destroyed. At that moment, I saw her face again.” This supposition is validated by the first lines (sentences) of the poem: “They never knew I was the seventh line of her last poem. The night she died, her mother gathered her books together in a sack, threw in her waist beads and her favourite ball pen.” The poem employs the stream-of-consciousness technique in revealing what seems like a dream of the persona witnessing her death and the reactions of her mother and her relationship with a girl. In the last line of the poem, the persona describes the girl thus: “She was a nice girl passionate about my existence; building me into a family of organized syntax.” It can be inferred from the above line that the persona is referring to her process of preparing herself for her future role as a poet. Through the use of anthropomorphism, the “poem” assumes a human character and acts as a human being in the poem as the persona informs in this line: “Poems have ears just you know.” Suffice to say that the poem is the narrator of the poem talking about the poet’s life.
In the second poem ‘Waist Beads’, we encounter yet again the persona’s continuation of the reflections highlighted in the opening poem. The reintroduction of “waist beads” and “flames” reinforces the notion of girlhood and connection to a spiritual force shrouding the life of the persona. In many African traditions, waist beads are used as ornaments to accentuate the femininity of girls or women but sometimes they are symbols of deeper spiritual ties. This assertion is corroborated by the mystical undercurrent in the poem which can be deduced from the tone of the persona in the following lines: “Those were her favourite words. I do not know why but the flames eating them up.” The poem also reechoes the supposition of the persona having a dream as indicated by the following lines: “I think today that there was silence then nothing and the next morning, I was in the hands of a little boy fetching bottles from a bin. He looked tattered with rumpled torn clothes, barefooted and impossibly.” The mystery in the first and second poems is explained in the third poem “Just as Miracles are Grains of Sudden Change” amplifying the foregoing assertion of a mysterious connection between the waist beads and flames. The persona asserts:
He was my new master. The second person to know me, read me, hear me. I was the djinn and he was the kid whose life was about to crave riches in the creation of many like me. I wished for many years that I could tell him about her. My queen of poetic verses and about my brothers long turned into ashes but I couldn’t. There is little a poem can share from painful recollection.
The above passage buttresses the mystical aura of the first three poems in the collection and invokes a spiritual essence that foregrounds the existence of the persona. The persona’s allusion to being a djinn supports this supposition. The first three poems exude a metaphysical cadence that sets the tone for the rest of the poems in the collection. The collection is a tribute to girlhood, womanhood, and the coming-of-age of a poet conscious of the social ills in her society. For example, in the poem, ‘Blocks. Beginnings. Poets’, the persona, while wondering what to write about, ends up writing the “beauty of the covered women blue/Like the endless sight of the sea/Retreating into the sun for safety?” In the same poem, she wonders if she should write about “trees as though there are persons worthy of life too? /Or of children duly murdered in mad boulevards of greed?” The portrayal of diverse social issues shows the unstable mind of the persona burdened with many concerns. It is also an indication of the subjects the persona is passionate about such as women, the environment, children, and the dysfunctional state of affairs of the society.
In ‘Little Girls’, the persona reminisces about childhood and the attendant complexities of adulthood. She juxtaposes this reality with the exploration of teenage romance symbolized by innocent attempts at learning how to kiss. She remembers thus: “We grew up learning how to kiss, slow, /Not the fast ravenous kind. /We let our tongues taste the waters, /Felt the lips like they were stones floating/Until we were gently leaping/From stone to stone to the other side.” This innocent romance and experiment with sex could sometimes lead dire consequences like unwanted teenage pregnancy as in the case of the persona’s friend who: “swallowed the river for a sip” and incurred her mother’s rage: “Her mother was enraged, /Dragged her across shame to the bank/But there was nothing there.” Zahra’s unique sense of representation is evident in her masterful application of metaphors to convey meanings without hinting at the obvious truth she relays.
In ‘To Call the Sun the Sun’, the persona reaffirms her femininity by describing herself disavowing the feminist toga associated with modern African women who are wont to ascribe male qualities to themselves rather than basking in the glory of their femaleness. This assertion is corroborated by the first stanza of the poem which reads:
I am a woman
Not a leopard panting through the dark
Poised limbs, claws jagging
Disoriented zigzags into history.
This inference is further elucidated in the second stanza in which the persona describes herself as a friend, stressing the humility of being a woman. She contrasts this portrayal with harmattan dust in Kano which is usually fierce and antagonistic to the skin. She proclaims: “I am a friend/Not the colour of dust, /Not harmattan in a city like Kano/Where two lovers buried their story.” In the third and fourth stanzas, she refers to herself as a poet and a “child learning to call the sun the sun.” This representation highlights the state of balance of the persona being comfortable in her skin rather than being an aggressive and impenetrable woman. It is a celebration of femininity and the pride of being a woman. The subminimality of womanhood comes to life in the poem titled ‘Woman’ in which the persona once again affirms her womanhood as though to clear a misconception regarding her being a woman. The poem celebrates the blessing of being a woman in its full glory. She declares:
By Allah,
I am a woman.
This woman whose toes do not touch the earth,
When she walks,
She carries her heart in her head!
I do not bathe with water;
I am an ocean whose space between time
And age is a conflict of colour.
There is an unpriced sense of fulfillment only attainment through a realization of one’s true essence and self-worth and Zahra embodies this notion in how she knits metaphors of girlhood and woman into poetic motifs that amplify her experience and voice as a woman and poet. It is the sort of consciousness that emanates from lived experiences premised on tested growth; to be aware, assured, and confident in one’s existence. For Zahra, to be a woman is an uncommon flex not to be taken lightly. Navigating childhood trauma to conquering one’s fears comes with a measured sense of awareness and balance amidst social limitations as thus far enunciated.
However, Zahra is not only aware of her femininity or girlhood but is also entangled in the social maladies that undermine the social fabric of her society and compatriots just as she is in tune with the deprived fates of children burdened with existential challenges like death, hunger, and poverty. Zahra cleverly interjects these social concerns in her poetry without seeming to be doing so. For example, in ‘Blocks. Beginnings. Poets.’ She writes: “May I write about trees as though (there) are persons worthy of a life too? /Or of children duly murdered in mad boulevards of greed?” In ‘Of Bad news and a Country’, she highlights the sense of strife and sadness in the land using the metaphor of hopeless children to buttress the sense of dystopia which describes as follows, “Abandoned like children unloved, unsheltered.” In ‘Anjenu’ she once again draws attention to the sorry state of children: “…Life halted at a zebra crossing/While we marvel at reality:/Living children carrying death on their heads/Like waterfalls retreating.”
‘Wasteland’ is perhaps the most ambitious problematisation of the dysfunctional state of the land and central to its concerns is the absence of care for children who have to endure the consequences of the failure of adults to provide and protect them from the harshness of life. The persona decries the neglect of children and the burden their young hearts have to bear. This position is succinctly reflected in the third stanza of the poem presented below:
These words flood the visions of a nation into jeopardy.
It washes the sidelines into stagnant dams
Of decaying sanity too rotten to retain life.
Here, children are leaders of tomorrow’s wasteland,
Buried to be searched for
Dug,
Excavated,
Like shattered bones from a landmine.
‘Wasteland’ is thus a telling metaphor for the hopelessness that engulfs the society without hope for respite and children are the greatest victims of the carnage orchestrated by failed leadership and maleficent governance. This ugly reality is further buttressed in ‘Early Riser’ where the persona asserts: “Children roaming the streets/Searching for survival with bowls/Too shallow to carry dreams.” Zahra’s poetic tribute to children and criticism of the social decay bedeviling the polity reflects the injustice suffered by innocent children who should be protected by society but who often than not are neglected and subjected to various forms of dehumanization.
In conclusion, it is instructive to note Zahra’s creative portrayal of the multilayered challenges that inhibit the attainment of individual and collective agency of the vulnerable members of society in a climate of existential realities. The collection thrives on its fine deployment of metaphors, imageries, and an acute sense of artistry that accentuates its subliminal messages. The poems are better appreciated when read as a thread of narration of a young woman navigating through the hurdles of life. Zahra employs different technical styles like surrealism, metaphysics aesthetics, mysticism, and African futurism in its reimagination and representation of girlhood, femininity, and philosophizing about life, love, death, and dystopia. The prose style adopted in the first three poems in the collection is upsetting to the poetic taste buds, as it evokes a feeling of a quasi-attempt at fiction. Overall, the collection would have benefited from a little more pruning. Nevertheless, Zarha’s Girls and the Silhouette of Form is a remarkable offering worthy of critical reception.
* Liam is a poet, critic, and author of two poetry collections
