Analysis of Joe Ushie Poem Eclipse in Rwanda
Title: Eclipse in Rwanda
Author: Joe Ushie
Place: Ibadan
Publisher: Kraft books Limited.
Publication Year: 2018
Language: English
Edition: copy right edition
Preliminary pages: 5-11
Main Pages: 12-68
ISBN: 978-039-114-2
Purpose of the book: The significant purpose of this book is to enlighten the people of the litany of conflicts ravaging mother Africa, from our back street in the villages to our cities and in the corridors of power.
Organisation of Content:
Eclipse in Rwanda has preliminary pages and main pages. The preliminary page consists of the title, the author’s name, place of publication ISBN, dedication, and forward and the poem is written in two sections. The author has arranged the sections in this book technically. The first part of the book containing about 25 poems can be seen as the anchor of the volume. These are pages on which Sections can be easily found. (13-44 section A, 45-68 section B)
Evaluation
There is an underlying metaphor in Joe Ushie’s coming to personhood and speaking against injustice that he seems to fail to make a case for the Biafrans killed during the Pogrom. This is a critical variable that determines the long-term effect of abuse of neglect appears to be the meaning the victim gives to the event. In this book, the preliminary pages are numbered with digits, not in roman figures and the preliminary page numbering starts from 5 after 2 pages of the text.
The first part of the book containing about 25 poems can be seen as the anchor of the volume while the second part bear a plaintive note in subject and tone. Eclipse in Rwanda is a metaphor for the litany of conflicts ravaging mother Africa, from our back street in the villages to our cities and in the corridors of power.
Ushie’s literary identity in the Eclipse in Rwanda becomes that of a victim who has embarked on a memorial for those who were killed in the eastern Nigeria defunct state of Biafra as replicated in the narration of the Tutsi’s experiences alongside the complicity and silence of the colonial powers who administratively created these situations. Implicitly submission is that the writings of Eclipse in Rwanda have redeemed Joe Ushie from becoming a manic anti-social being and conditioned him to be very considerate and mild towards life and its realities. Consequently, the text highlights the transient nature of trauma, which could take the form of a new site while bearing every element of the previous scars as it is illustrated in the poetry collection understudied.
The use of “my”, “our” and “I” demonstrate the personification of the individual and Eclipse in Rwanda becomes in the word of Caruth “the narrative of a belated experience, far from telling of an escape from reality the escape from death, or from it referential forces-rather attests to its endless impact on ” Ushie’s life. Ushie, therefore, reconstructs past events in service of the present.
The poet brings freshness and maturity to enliven these poems with his deployment of metaphors and deliberate coinage of words merged with puns on sound to create depth to meaning. Eclipse in Rwanda is a remarkable addition to our search for peace and a new dawn in our homeland. In the poem titled “town crier,” the poet portrays a persona as one who has the semblance of he who aids injustices of the system by being part of the “rented” crowed shouting praises to the rulers.
In the context of the poet, the question the poet asks the world town crier in the poem is “how much is your pain? How much is your gain? Eclipse in Rwanda is a representation of the past in the mode of the present, which the persona is addressing and preserving it within the framework of literature. The past, which is life long, finds a present in the poet’s lamentation where he vows that he would sing.
Conclusion
Some of the poems are satiric bent, some protest while others bear a plaintive note in subject and tone, but all are united in the passionate insight which they resolve in varying human situations. From random examples from the volume, it is clear that the poet has pitched his camp with the defenseless of society, making himself their advocate. Eclipse in Rwanda reveals the impact of the pogrom and the war on the persona’s psyche. The poem becomes a form of remembering and re-echoing the voices that the poet has internalized, making it an element of his muse. Ushie’s traumatic situation at home affects his conceptualization of deceit within African society.