James Eze’s ‘goosebumps’: The passionate ideology of love

By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

A successful first collection is almost always an impossible act to follow in the annals of poetry. Lyrical poetry at its best tasks inspiration beyond perspiration. In the view of some critics, the great William Wordsworth had the longest decline in English poetry because his classic early flourish could not be sustained in the course of his long life. There is the controversial case in Nigeria of JP Clark who was prodigiously endowed in his early poems only to somewhat peter out, in the view of many critics, after the inaugural applause.

James Ngwu Eze remarkably had a distinguished debut with his 2019 collection dispossessed. When that first collection made its appearance, I had to borrow WB Yeats’ phrase “a terrible beauty is born” to celebrate the landmark offering. Eze’s dispossessed served up a tonic that got all true lovers of sublime poetry astonishingly possessed! One had genuine reasons to fear that Eze had set a standard too high to match in his follow-up collection, given what had happened to forerunner lyrical poets. Today, Eze is stepping up with his second collection goosebumps (Griots Lounge Publishing Nigeria, Owerri; 2023), a selection of 50 love poems. It is cool by me to remember that the philosopher Plato who banned poets from The Republic once said, “At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.”

The matter of everyone becoming a poet brings forward the issue of the tosh that gets advertised as prize-winning contemporary poetry in much of the world in this day and age. In my book, most of those prize-winners of dross cannot in truth be said to be up to par in poetry. Using the hip dodge of presenting Spoken Word verses a lot of excited poetasters do great damage to the noble art of poetry. It’s as though any wannabe that types a cache of mumbo-jumbo on his mobile phone has delivered poetry of instant genius. Sorry, I belong to the old school of tradition where it takes rigorous time to hone poetry.

I once got into heavy trouble when I wrote condemning the judges who gave a coveted poetry prize to a collection entitled Eko Ree (The Many Faces of Lagos) written by Simbo Olorunfemi, and I stated that amu nnadi’s pilgrims passage ought to have won the prize instead. I was condemned by many interested parties, with some even citing tribalism against me, but like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I did not make any reply to non-juveniles yakking like juveniles. Poetry, to borrow from Shakespeare’s ambition in Julius Caesar, should be made of sterner stuff.

Let’s get serious because Eze in goosebumps is the real deal, a poet well-armed with consummate metaphors, music and metier to go the distance in poetry. In the 50 love poems that make up goosebumps, Eze offers a passionate ideology of love as the fulcrum of life and living. Reading the love poems packaged in goosebumps, I’m moved to share company with the renowned love poets of the canon such as John Keats, John Donne, Lord Byron, Shelley, and e.e cummings who incidentally shares the style of writing in lower case with James Eze. On the Nigerian front, Eze’s love poems makes one to recall Niyi Osundare’s 2006 collection Tender Moments: Love Poems.

Shakespeare writes in Twelfth Night: “If music be the food of love, play on…” Music and memory are the compelling ingredients of Eze’s love poems. Incidentally, one of the poems in goosebumps‘ “hourglass” has already been set to music. Let me just read out the first stanza as my voice is too rowdy for the lofty music therein:

hourglass, you stood in magic
soaking up glances from smitten hearts
you were the subject of unresolved battles
the mystery of unoccupied castles

The dreamscape of discovery that Eze crafts with the musicality of his poetry somewhat reprises the lifework of the revolutionary musician Bob Marley who is posited as doing protest music when in fact the Jamaican legend wrote more love songs. There is the dimension of Bob Dylan being celebrated for his music only to end up winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. Making meaning of the sound of Eze in goosebumps calls for comparative synergies.

Where I strongly disagree with Eze is in his unwanted advice in trying to segregate how one should enjoy the seamless flow of his goosebumps. In his Introduction to goosebumps, Eze writes: “Divided into serenade, desire, besotted, heartache and songs, goosebumps whimsically splits love apart and delicately re-assembles it back into a magnificent orchestra in which each instrument floats swimmingly in the power of its own sublimity to deliver a searing song that is as sensual as heartrending. Each movement in the collection reveals a new artery of feeling, each poem a heightening of experience that leaves goosebumps all over the skin.”

Now I ask: Who gave Eze the audacity to whimsically split love? I am using all the emphasis at my command to stress that goosebumps must be enjoyed as one seamless whole devoid of divisions. Through his deft deployment of words, Eze can make even heartache orgasmic.

It is incumbent on me to share the gems of goosebumps across the pages because great poets over the ages are duly celebrated through their standout lines. For instance, when we talk of Christopher Okigbo, we remember the lines: When you have finished/and done up my stitches/Wake me near the altar/and this poem will be finished…

Communication expert, Emwka Ozumba (left); poet and author of goosebumps, James Eze and book reviewer and poet, Uzor Maxim Uzoatu after the launch in Enugu

Eze in goosebumps deserves celebration for delivering heartfelt lines as per modern couplets that will live forever. Starting from the paradoxical opening poem “my mistress”, we read: you swept into my life like a hurricane/and now my heart will not beat if it does not beat for you. In the poem “sleepwalker” Eze emotes: trapped in the maze of your beauty/i am a sleepwalker singing in my dream. The poem “resonance” throbs with: beloved, i shall sing my heart out today/to keep the storm inside me at bay. We get to the poem “landscape” and read: your body is my landscape/please permit me to explore it. In “flowers dance at dawn”, Eze pens: i wake up to the sunlight of your smile/your teeth glowing like diamonds in my dream. The poem “standing in light” renders: beloved, you are the razor that cuts through/my nightmares to wake me to happy memories. In the poem “pentecost” we are served signs and wonders thusly: i am your sign/and you are my wonder. Even a deadly pandemic offers lines of beauty as in the poem “love in time of corona” Eze delivers: i want to inhale your breath tonight/through the vents on your nose mask. The title poem “goosebumps” gives us: you broke all over me like goose bumps/spreading until my body was your territory.

The love affair with Eze’s goosebumps becomes so intense that the body and soul of the devoted reader becomes the poet’s territory after a reading. It is such a total intercourse that must not be distracted by capital letters and punctuation marks. Eze’s love poetry is quite jealous in its ceaseless flow of captivating entrapment.

Eze ranks quite high in the cadre of Nigeria’s most prolific poets. Now that he has broken the second collection jinx through goosebumps, there is no limit to what he can achieve through a total devotion to poetry. He is definitely sui generis.

* Review read at the Presentation of James Ngwu Eze’s GOOSEBUMPS at Centre of Memories, Ncheta Ndigbo, Independence Layout, Enugu on Saturday, July 15, 2023