Something steady, something body: A review of Gboyega Odubanjo's WHILE I YET LIVE
while I yet live by gboyega odubanjo — bad betty press, 2019
poetry / 34 pages / £6
reviewed by emilie kneifel
the title: “while i yet live.” the first line begins, “i will die.” and rewinds. “i will die in london in the neighbourhood / i grew up in outside the town hall / on the high street.” winding, wound. the sound of “street” a collapse.
while i yet live’s every moment is like its first line. straining toes, most precise, ankle tense. pushed through the thrum of the speaker’s quick breathing. “today a young man / has died they will say today a young man has died today / it will be friday a young man has died young o so terribly / young.” “o so terribly / young.” instant sprain. “it will be friday,” he says, amidst all the ringing.
amidst all the ringing, odubanjo unhooks. words, faces, until something dislodges. in the second poem, (as the speaker says, drive “slow / so sun don’t blur into moon so the streetlights,” as he himself blurs the moon into streetlights) the direction “take me to the park || to the river || to my mother’s house” becomes “and it’s darker now || lights been chasing us / a long time // my mother she’s been calling me” becomes “tell my mother i won’t be / coming home.”
ringing echoes. “it will be friday.” somewhere else: “look at them on friday— saturday night,” dancing in a poem that shimmers back and forth down the page. it’s a fridayless saturday; “they dance like problems falling away / look.” but the friday is right there, scrawled underneath. “it was a sunday” in another poem, burrowed in rhythm just like “it will be friday,” so we know it was a sunday with fridays in mind.
sound is this book’s sunday (partly so precious because “we were told / to stay off the music channels / but ... we found ourselves ... looking for cds our parents kept / in cabinets”). it drenches: “pour me water || please || pour some / water || on me ... pour me / by the gallon.” deluge a kind of absolution. when odubanjo inserts percussion — “[here, i imagine light drums in the background]” ; “maybe it needs / [more drums, more drums]” — the noise is both a respite and a way back into the sound of oneself. something steady, something body, in the beat.
emilie kneifel is a sick slick, poet critic, reviews editor at The Puritan, creator of CATCH and PLAYD8s, columnist at heartworms, eye candy, blueberries, windier. find 'em at emiliekneifel.com, @emiliekneifel, in bed with their palms up.