Flashback: Review of "A Bright Light Sleeps and Other Stories" by Oswald Okaitei

Your excellency Mr. Chairman,
Your Eminence, Prof. Atukwei Okai, Secretary General of the Pan African Writers Association

Mr. Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng, President of the Ghana Association of Writers

Prof. Hellen Yitah,
Dr. Gheysika Agambila, Vice President of the Ghana Association of Writers, and a former Deputy Minister of Finance in the Republic of Ghana

Mr. Kwasi Pratt Jnr, a celebrated senior journalist

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen
On a lighter note, "distinguished ladies and gentlemen" reminds of an incident where a speaker addressing his audience, erroneously mentioned Extinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, and caused fear and panic since the audience thought they were going to be wiped out or something of that sort.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, on a more serious note. I'm not here to extinguish you; but to review "A Bright Light Sleeps and Other Poems", a collection of poems written by Oswald George Okaitei, and I'm exceedingly grateful to the author for doing me this great honour to review his book.

Poetry review is a difficult area which requires a certain esoteric expertise. So, my work becomes more difficult with my background as a prose writer. And even more challenging is the fact that I have poetry experts of international repute such as Prof. Atukwei Okai, and critics like Mr. Kwasi Pratt, and also several academic luminaries wide awake here with cocked ears to also review my work; so, I'm going to be brief so that I don't fall into any trouble.

The work of a book reviewer is to analyse, empathize, compare, contrast, historicize, contextualize, defend and demolish. But fortunately I have very little demolishing to do this evening because the book under review is well written.

" A Bright Light Sleeps and Other Stories" is a 91-page book with 31 poems. It also contains some quotes by the Late Maya Angelou and tributes to Maya by famous personalities such as President Barack Obama, President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, Oprah Winfrey, etc.

There are also some collections of twitter reactions from some celebrities including Rihanna, J. K. Rowling, Steve Harvey, Terry McMillan, etc. when Maya Angelou died.

The author's purpose of writing these collection of poems is to eulogize the Late Maya Angelou, one of the world's famous poet and writer; and I think Oswald succeeded in getting his message across with powerful imagery which appeal to a reader's emotions.

The poems in this book are very deep and have many layers of meaning, both literal and symbolic layers. The poems are meaningful yet simplistic and easy to understand.

There is a logical progression of ideas, and I admire the author's recurring use of figures of speech such as metaphors, personification and irony. For instance under the Poem "I am only a sojourner here-in", the author adeptly uses the following stanza to describe the temporal nature of the human body and what happens to it after death:

I read:
I wear
Borrowed cloth kneaded from the
Fibres of dust!
So when night comes at last, my dust shall go back to dust

These literary devices will help readers to understand deep concepts without explanation. And I think this is a hallmark of a great poet.

The poems also create a connotative meaning of sorrow; and evoke a feeling of sadness, and I love the following stanza from the poem, "From the Shores of Osagyefo", a poem to Maya on behalf of Ghanaians.

I read:
Alas!
Our eyes tear like rains
Gushing out of the
Skies on a thunderous down pour day
Another one from the poem, "I Know why the 'Cageless' Birds Fly No more"

The skies
Are empty of the birds' flights
The birds perch
On the tree branches humming the hymns of
Sorrows
Surely, I know why
The 'cageless' birds fly no more
They are 'sorrowed'
And so have deserted their flights to mourn
Their mother bird
Besides, the author succeeded in using execellent diction and concrete language to get the desired effects, and I like the line " bright light has found a sip of sleep" in the poem, "A Bright Light Sleeps."

Furthermore, Oswald exhibited his creative prowess by craftily linking his poem, "Maya, Bring Back Our Girls" to the gory activities of Boko Haram in Nigeria.

But as much as I agree that the author has done a terrific job, I would have loved that he garnished and spiced this work with varieties of other literary devices. For instance, this work is deficient of the use of end and internal rhymes which could have given a musical pleasing sound to this work. I also didn't remember seeing any alliteration in the entire book.

In conclusion, "A BRIGHT LIGHT SLEEPS AND OTHER STORIES" is a must-read work for all poetry lovers and for all who appreciate good work of art.

Thank you.
Anthony Obeng Afrane