90 contemporary poetry
oh
the oba sobs
again ifá ifá ifá i
fá over and over
the seven
seas ora
in this time ora
within ora ora time within
loss (p. 60 )
Different languages collide throughout the volume; here there
is a non-hierarchical juxtaposition of English and Latin (ora)
with Yoruba (ifá). Working from the original legal document,
NourbeSe Philip incorporates silence into the text through gaps
and omissions on the page. Visually the page re-enacts the momen-
tum of the falling and drowning slaves, the rehearsal of prayer and
a call for divination or ifá. The text performs an echo chamber as
one language sonically intersects another, made clear in the visual
and aural prompts created between ifá and the call to divination,
as with the fractured ‘falling’ that haunts the entire volume. The
sound of Yoruba rises in the text, and the poem performs as a score
of lamenting voices. A desperate attempt at asserting control and
authority is reinforced by the repeated mantra of ‘there is fate’,
‘there is creed’, as well as the recall of the comforting cliché ‘seven
seas’. Against this we have the tragic breaking down of the Yoruba
king or ruler: ‘the oba sobs’. The poet uses the Latin for bones,
‘ora’, as a musical marker or chant that forms a half echo with
‘oba’. The musical counterpoints in the poem with their sonic and
alliterative movements create suggestive liaisons, intersections and
a review of history that are incremental within the volume.
From an archival report of two pages, NourbeSe Philip creates
a poem spanning one hundred and eighty-two pages. In doing this
she sees the poet’s role as both magician and editor ‘simultaneously
censoring the activity of the reported text while conjuring the pres-
ence of excised Africans’ (p. 199 ). Importantly, the poet stresses
that experimentation is key in her approach to the material; that
challenging the structures of language enacts a form of political
critique. Her mentor is African-American writer Audre Lorde: