EDITORIAL REPORTS


Robin Saika

Robin Saika - July, 1998 – EDITORIAL REPORT
This extraordinary cycle of poems is capable by turns of making one laugh or cry. Such is the spot-on enthusiasm and aptness with which its author communicates all of the bitter-sweet joys and disappointments of love. The poems vary in length: some are extended meditations on a chosen theme and others consist simply of a stark and powerful four or five line statement. Whichever voice the author adopts, it is impossible to ignore him.
I can imagine many people turning these pages and saying ‘Yes! I have felt that! Or ‘My goodness! I know exactly what he is saying!’ I would argue in favour of a carefully-thought-out balance between the longer and the shorter poems, the respective merits of which I have mentioned. This will be a gratifying and pleasurable book to produce and I am sure that it will find the readership it undoubtedly deserves.
Charles Ayo Dada speaks in a voice which demands to be heard and I hope that we can take things a stage further.


Professor Lamikanra – February, 2005 - EDITORIAL REPORT
The poet has found many ways to say,'I love you.'
Even when the response was heartbreakingly negative, he persisted in saying it with passion, honesty and an engaging lack of self-consciousness. Each page is splashed with the sweetness of words lovingly crafted and reverently served; to pander to the taste of the most fastiduous aesthete.
This collection is a veritable feast, eminently worthy of the poet's invitation to enjoy!


Seye Aluko - May 2006 - CHARLES AYO DADA PUBLISHES MANUAL OF POETRY
There are many types of writings that masquerade as poetry. It is perhaps easier to decipher what poetry is not, rather than what it is! Poetry embraces the accessible as well as the “inaccessible,” (accessible meaning easy to understand). Therefore to many a poet, it is not material whether you understand him or not! And the mere fact that a poem is unclear (dense), does not disqualify it from being poetry. Poetic devices, such as rhythm, profundity, imagery etc, are all important aspects of the poetic genre. The meaning of a poem is only one of its attributes. Therefore when several of these elements succeed, even when the meaning is not clear, what is written can be said to be poetic.

Charles Ayo Dada is an exciting young Nigerian writer, who has published a refreshing book of poems called The Ghost of Zina. This book contains 61 poems on love, both “requited” (successful) love, as well as “unrequited” (unsuccessful) love.

The series of poems admirably addresses the ardour, passion, highs and lows of a romantic liaison the writer was most likely involved in, but which relationship appears to have backfired, to the great distress of the writer! But the personal nature of the experiences mediated in the poetry notwithstanding, through the writer’s literary ability and penchant for using a commendable combination of words, they are able to evoke powerful pictures, scents, smells and even sounds, which have a potent universality!

In the various poems the author illustrates the depth to which his soul was stirred, stretched, twisted, tortured and unfortunately broken by a love (relationship) he invested so heavily in emotionally, but which love finally collapsed! Of the love gone sour, Dada states:
In the past, I used to walk up to gift shops spending hours selecting that gift I felt would suit your person / Now I don’t know if these shops still exist / I used to roam the gardens in search of flowers whose radiance I felt would match yours / Now I no longer know where the gardens are / I used to plan towards if for weeks, places I intend us to visit / Resorts I wanted to take you to right away and in the future / Now I only look forward to staying at home (In The Past, Poem No. 71).

Dada again illustrates his ability to powerfully evoke images in poem No: 99 Water Girl. He writes: I was plunged into a pool that surged and bubbled with love / which brought out beautiful bubbles that sparkled as it burst / In this pool I swam, beholding the beauty of the waters astonished at the many wonders / that lay there for me to see / Golden swans swam above it / glittering starfish swam beneath / mermaids merried within it / these sights were so beautiful to me / And the waters foamed and danced filling my soul with love / leaving me in a state of indescribable bliss I wish that I can share / Share?!

These examples show the writer’s ability to use short everyday language and phrases, yet employ them to powerful effect. The potency of Dada’s poetry is not in the use of long words, but more in the juxtaposition of his chosen words to convey striking insights.

Dada writes a series of poems about the same love affair. However he harps on a different angle in each poem. So the sequence, rather than getting stale, becomes fresher and fresher! Dada utilizes a mixture of image-types, including floral imagery, fragrances, the imagery of water, nature, precious stones, music, warfare, cosmopolis, etc. However the imagery utilized is appropriate to the context of the message he communicates. In certain cases the imagery used is bare and austere, but appropriate still for vivid communication. For example, this is the case in poem No 85 (Crippled): We tried our best, with our different levels of understanding / to sustain our dying love / Like two severely crippled cripples / trying to teach each other how to walk!

Throughout the series of seventy one poems, Dada comes across as an incurable romantic, being able to swing to heights of emotion that would be hard to attain by the average individual. His ability to relate, evoke and convey such strong emotions from such romantic experiences (in relationships), shows his mental and spiritual fertility! And this book on poetry must be merely regarded as a precursor for others that are likely to follow, as the writer is profound, gifted and capable of writing many further works.

Although Dada relates the height of this love relationship, he is also able to minutely record it depths. In fact most of the poetry is the poetry of pain, such as the short poem (No: 84 Pain)! It wouldn’t leave, with the sleeping pills / nor with the tranquillizers / It wouldn’t succumb to the alcohol, nor to the energizers / For the first time in my life / I knew the effects of a broken heart!

Dada’s poetry again brings to our contemplation the great question: “What is love and how and why do we love?” Is there such a thing as “love,” or is Dada being unnecessarily romantic? These issues about love are addressed in numerous songs. The Everly Brothers sang: So sad to watch good love grow bad. Jim Reeves sang: When two love the same love, one love has to lose, The Beatles sang: Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play. They also sang I’m A Loser! And Ray Charles sang: Take these chains from my heart and set me free …

Therefore Dada is writing about the familiar, though in an unfamiliar manner. He is engaging his attention of a familiar passion (the love of the heart and soul), in an era of crass cynicism and scepticism about the same subject. This is because twisted models of opportunistic “love” relationships, broken-marriages, and fickle liaisons that compromise marital fidelity abound! There is no doubt that in the jet-pace of modern life, many sacred concepts such as the institution of marriage, have undergone serious alterations. The bitter experiences that many people encounter in love makes them question if such a thing as “love” truly exists, or whether love is mere “convenience,” or even “lust!” But Dada’s writings expose him to be a true romantic. To Dada the maxim is true: ’Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all (Alfred, Lord Tennyson). So love is a sentiment that attracts universal attention. Therefore, if love is described as being old fashioned, then we should all try to follow through the example of Dada’s book, of sometimes reverting back to it!

Dada concluded the book with a sequence of three essays titled The Sage, in which writings he uses a style and concept of parables to expound maxims and wise insights, similar to the style encountered in the eastern-type mystics of esoteric schools.

Introduced therefore are three one-page essays, discussing Fellowship, Leadership, and Knowledge and Experiencing. In these writings a wise man (Sage or guru) confers and interacts with his students (or disciples), thereby imparting to them invaluable insights about life. Dada has thereby subtly shifted from poetry to prose, and he handles the prose with the same magical facility as his poetry. For example, in one of the essays, “The Sage” demonstrates to his students the efficacy of joint prayers by stating that a heavy boulder (weight) can only be physically lifted and carried away by the joint efforts of several, and not one single student.

Therefore Dada’s manual of poetry and prose-poetry is a welcome entrant to the national and international market. It ensures the reader can enjoy the delights of imagery in language, but at the same time understand what he is reading about.

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ROSS STANTON – June 1998 - EDITORIAL REPORT
We have now had an opportunity for making an assessment of your work. Our readers enjoyed your poetry and in our opinion you have the true poetic impulse, together with considerable skill and stylistic versatility.




Deji Toye - June 2006 - The Ghost of Zina-When Innocence is not a Virtue
Since the beginning of recorded poetry, poets have been leaving us with legacies of compositions inspired by matters of the heart. From Solomon to Shakespeare, poets have composed songs, verses and chants, either to celebrate blooming love affairs, if not often raw, unmediated infatuation (or what some would call ‘lust’) or mourn lost or unrequited love. Charles Ayo Dada’s newly published collection of poems, The Ghost of Zina (“the Ghost” for short), falls in the latter category. Written between 1995 and 1997, the poems in the Ghost are the outpouring of the already over-bled heart of a disappointed lover.

The Zina of the title is the archetypal unfaithful lover – wily, sly, cold and heartless – while the poet-persona is the traditional heroic lover – innocent, pure of heart and straight of intention (read altogether ‘naïve’). This mix is the classical stuff of all love stories turned sour, at least from the unqueried rhapsodies of one party in the matter.

In the title poem (pp.39-42), the poet persona is a guest in the funeral ceremony of Zina, accompanied by four human elements – ego, intellect, pride and conscience, with each tugging at his soul on the question of how he is to react to the demise of an old disappointing lover, a situation itself not altogether unlike that of the poet persona in D.H. Lawrence’s ‘Snake’. The resolution of this conflict itself is not clear at the end of the poem as the poet seems, in the end, to lapse to the more theatrical occurrence of the ghost of Zina “floating” out of the coffin. This poem which shows, at the onset, the possibility of delving into unusual depths in this collection loses the chance in this inability to keep to a set objective.

This tendency towards the narrative-dramatic is also noticeable in the opening poem of the collection, ‘It’s More than a Movie’ (pp. 15 & 16) where the poet persona and Zina visit the cinema to see a movie in which they both act as Romeo and Juliet, but the cast of the movie changes mid-show, with a new Romeo springing up and the Zina eventually leaves the cinema in a most dramatic way. The poem ends thus:
“Hand in hand
They were walking out of the cinema hall
Zina
… And the other Romeo”

For most of the rest of the collection however, we notice that the poet persona is not as conflicted as he is presented at the beginning of the title poem. He seems to feel at home in the secure embrace of the elements, one at a time, except that in this case, they are either self-pity, vengeance, anger or hope (against hope).

In ‘The Piper’s Conquest’ (pp. 17-18), the poet persona begins by imagining himself as a marionetted dancer under the enchanting flute melody of Zina, not much unlike an Indian charmed snake. But eventually he realizes that it was not really to music but torture that he is being subjected, with “pieces of my flesh/ hanging loosely” on the tip of Zina’s whip. The poet ended quite needlessly:
“Truth is I had been hypnotized By the melody… of love!” (p. 18)

In ‘At the Frontiers of War’ (pp. 21-22), a rose-bearing man approaches a sword-wielding woman in a coliseum-like dueling arena. His offer of love in place of war is however betrayed when the woman (unnamed although we could safely assume now that she has to be Zina) thrust her sword into the man’s (the poet persona’s) heart. The man goes down still professing his love.

In other poems, the two lovers are cast in other similar molds. As the cat and the mice, vulture and the dead in ‘Sorrow upon Sorrow”(p. 25), as slave and slave owner in, well, ‘Slaved’ (pp. 26-27), as the gate-keeper in a castle and an adventurous maiden in ‘Beyond the Castle Walls’ (pp. 30-31). To our eternal relief, the man fights back in ‘Conquistador’ (pp. 36-37) where the disappointed poet persona cuts off the limbs of a horse he has given to an unfaithful lover.

It is doubtless that Charles Ayo Dada is never in want of imagery to capture his emotions, drawing freely from classical European sources, modern pop culture and, sparingly though, African background. From flying kites, to making wine, to dueling in the coliseum, to visiting the cinema, to keeping the gate (draw-bridge, really) of a castle, Dada demonstrates a resounding knack for drawing appropriate imageries to construct the relevant circumstances of his imagination. Sadly, some of these imageries are reproduced in their undigested forms thus leaving the collection with many avoidable tired constructions and clichés.

We also notice a lot of prosaic phrases which ought not to be caught in lines of poetry. Some include ‘paid rapt attention’ (p. 15), ‘I was immediately thrown into a dilemma’(p. 16), or a whole stanza that goes thus:
“There is something about you That’s captivating, motivating and inspiring” (p. 103).
Cliches often give way to pleonasms, as in ‘aching migraine’ (p.24).

For a first collection that has been put together since the middle of the 1990s although, going by the blurb, it has made rounds of some of the foreign contributory publishing houses, this work can be forgiven for the innocence of thought and rudimentary compositions that dot its pages. One also cannot wait to see the next work by this poet in order to measure how much he has been able to evolve original thoughts of his to complement the diversity of imagery which he has already showcased in this collection.

Along with the diversity of imagery, one thing that must also be celebrated about the Ghost is the quality of production. Published by a Nigerian outfit, but printed in the USA, the book in its outlay, pagination and quality of editing should serve as an example to other small-time publishers bringing out books in Nigeria at the moment. The work shows a deliberate effort to bring out a work that matches, in technical quality, works coming out from elsewhere.

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Edozie Udeze - The Comet Newspaper - July 9 2006 - Love Flickers in the Ghost of Zina
The Ghost of Zina, is a deliberate attempt, but in a free flowing form, to dissect the bowels of love and then appeal especially to human anatomy. Here comes a poet with his numerous innuendos of love reverberating.
It is both the title of the book and the themes of the poems that give vent to the kind of love affair and emotional upbeats, which the poet penned down for public consumption.
It is a collection that flows form the innermost part of his heart. The poems are full of trusts and mistrusts, realities and make beliefs that characterize most love experiences in the lives of young people.
Charles Ayo Dada did not quite write for the academic world or audience. His poems make no pretences about that. He took his time to look deeply into the inner confines of men where love tends to rule the heart. Where disappointments, either by the man or the woman have become an everyday occurrence. The poems talk about life; they dwell on life and indeed project and propagate the very essence that keeps or hinders the relationship that exists between the opposite sexes.
As you go through the poems, you are unconsciously carried away by the emotions embedded in them. These emotions come from the heart. They are what Shakespeare himself would rather describe as the inner conscience of man. The idea, generally, is to let the world into the sweetness and bitterness of those “meandering varying states of bliss, anger and confusion” that tend to exist in the human subconscious.
The author traverses into this mundanity and then sums it up clearly in the foreword: “Having traversed various by-paths, I have come to the ultimate realization that love finds its essence in giving – in giving truthfully, selflessly, sincerely, even… severely!”
Often, when the love fever grips and tends to ceaselessly torment, one not only tries to express it in form and lines but also physically.
Dada goes on to prove this point when he says thus:
“I was entranced by your melody, like I didn’t have a mind of my own, strangely attracted to the tunes, that seeped out of your flute.
I danced slowly at first, resting when I became tired, until your fluting became faster, and then …suddenly faster! Suddenly I spun around and collapsed… awaking to a very strange scenario!
You were still fluting, but… ordering me to dance!”…
And as he kept dancing and gyrating helplessly, love stood by staring him in the face!
Love, as it were, had beclouded his sense of reasoning.
It is indeed only love, true love, built around solitude, often embedded in dreams, that can keep a man’s heart in stupendous stupor.
The title of the book says it all. The book is forthcoming in its description of the feelings of the lover regarding Zina.
The writer quips unequivocally thus:
“I stood at silent by the graveside, as four distinct parts of me – my ego, intellect, pride and conscience – came to pay their last respects to the remains of Zina… my capricious partner.”
The symbolism of Zina as the pivot of love shows itself more blatantly towards the end of the poem. The author becomes more emotional as he describes the scenario surrounding Zina; “And as I hid behind an almond tree trembling, I watched the coffin slowly rise, and as the lid creaked open…the ghost of Zina floated out!”
The Ghost of Zina is poetic symbolism anchored on the true realism of love. The concept of love is either working or it isn’t. But whichever form it takes, it seems the man does all the chasing, swearing, fussing, sweating, motions etc in attention to win the approval of the woman.
Dada shows innuendos of deep emotional incursions into the hidden recesses of the woman. And whether or not these relationships worked out, it did not fault the very essence of love as the symbolism of life.
Captured in three parts, the one hundred and twenty page collection does justice to all issues pertaining to the play of love between men and women.
In the very first poem in the second part of the book, entitled, “T’is too late”,
The poet laments: “Answer no more the questions that I once posed, when I fell blindly with you then. T’is too late now, I bleed from an open sore.”
He continues even more pathetically: “Give me no longer the attention I craved, which I also demanded then. T’is too late now, I lament, I need it no more.
Bring not your sorrow across to me, it wouldn’t change the tides, T’is too late now… you know I once tried.”
He goes on and on with these varied expressions of love and feelings…
The whole essence of this collection is to put love in a proper perspective.
In the third part of the book, the author concludes with a poem that most aptly summarises the concept of the work, “Of men and Love.”
He states, “Be it not of men to write of love, then a man I cease to be.”
He is not yet done as he further points out:
“And then soulfullness triumphs valiantly over base and narrow feelings.
Be it not of men to speak of love, then a man I cease to be.”
In all, this is a collection for relaxation, for recreation, for pleasure and for those whose love of poetry can never be controverted.
It is for men and women who genuinely believe and thrive on love, and who would as well go all the way to experience, whether or not the relationship stands a chance of working.
Printed abroad, The Ghost of Zina is a collector’s item.
Whichever way it swings, love may be bitter or love may prove to be sweet.
This is what is proven in these sixty evocative love poems – poems that make lovers go soul searching, which as well make them wish that the game is played the way it is professed.

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Akeem Lasisi - The Punch Newspaper - August 4 2006 - Diamond from the Rubble the Love
When you want to witness hot romances, the type that many describe as love in Tokyo or Romeo and Juliet, the best places to visit are the university campuses. Beyond the short-lived October rush tradition and bush meat opportunism that are prevalent, some relationships between male and female undergraduates are so entrenched that they become the talk of the campus.
In the early 1990’s, Lagos based Ayo Dada experienced such at the Obafemi Awolowo University. A romantic relationship he forged with a fellow student got so deep that each believed that he or she could not live a second without the other. It was one of those celebrated campus loves that many thought was destined for the alter. However, before the eyes of everyone, something happened, and the relationship crumbled. It crumbled irreparably, with Dada confessing retrospectively that the tragedy did a huge blow on his psyche.
The relationship was alive till the final year, he explains. But at a certain point things started to disintegrate until the thing banged.
Dada nursed the pain for ages. Although the lovers later resumed on talking terms, the love was gone forever. Indeed Zelina – the love name he gave the bird – is now married with kids.
Ten years after, however, poetry has turned the victim into a victor; Dada is out with The Ghost of Zina, a collection of poems that detail his experiences during and after the ill-fated love affair.
“Happiness is a motivation for any writer. So also can sadness be. After the relationship had gone, spontaneous eruptions and pain began to flow into poetry. I have an account of the low sides of the affair, and I have the positive sides too.”
The sixty poems in the collection lavishly take care of all the vicissitudes of the affair.
In fact, it is the interplay of the variegated emotional overflow that gives The Ghost of Zina arresting poetic flavours.
But in this kind of autobiographical account, does the writer not risk the chance of inflicting wounds on the other party’s emotion?
Dada says he has taken care of this.
“She knew about the collection as far back as seven years ago. I published it with her permission, so that I don’t harm her emotions. She looked at the poems and did not have any problems with them. Rather, we both realize the need to teach everyone that the basis of all union should be love. We interact closely now. It is not supposed to be a Hiroshima that should separate us till eternity,” he added.
The Ghost of Zina also has a stage history. Some of the poems, especially the title one, had been performed, with musicians and painters etc having worked on it. The implication is that the poems now come out very mature in terms of their semantic and properties. Besides, the printing standard is uniquely high.
““When you put ten years into anything, what comes out must be seasoned. I also run a gallery of art meaning that I should be able to appreciate the concept of beauty very well.”
He also enjoyed a partnership of a squad of multi-skilled artists while developing the concept for the book.
Those who are familiar with the intellectual and artistic tragedy that many self-published books in Nigeria exude will be surprised at the finishing touches of Dada’s collection. But this may not be too surprising as the work was printed abroad with the first two thousand copies costing over half a million naira.
One is proud to recommend The Ghost of Zina to readers who believe in the eternity of good poetry.

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Bunmi Wuraola - The Guardian Newspaper - July 17 2006 - Exorcising Love in the Ghost of Zina
At the touch of love, says Plato, everyone becomes a poet. Charles Ayo Dada’s The Ghost of Zina, attests to the truism of this statement. But the kind of poet that Dada is and the story he attempts to tell with the experiences behind it form the thrust of The Ghost of Zina.
The Ghost of Zina is a true love story, captured in sixty poems spanning ninety-seven pages. The title poem is the longest work in the collection.
The Ghost of Zina is Dada’s first collection of poetry. Though Dada studied accountancy at the Obafemi Awolowo University, he retraced his childhood ambition to become a writer and put down the collection of these poems to tell a true-life experience.
Dada bemoans the harsh reality of love, as one does not need go beyond the title-poem of the entire collection to discover this truth. In pursuing the theme of love and unfaithfulness, Dada insists that it is true that the beloved usually betray their lovers. In the various poems, the author illustrates the level of passion and the love the poet invested in a relationship that finally collapsed.
Dada states, /Ever had a kite/ Ever loved a kite/ Ever been so used to flying this kite and watching it sail with the winds?/ Ever lost a kite? Ever had to watch that kite you once loved flying/ fly away/ to never return?/ Ever?
The poem also delves into the deeply personal feelings. In the title poem, whether to-be or not-to-be, Dada relates the height of the relationship with the said lover, Zina, whom the book is surprisingly dedicated to. He perhaps could not decipher what he wanted and so he was persistently soaked in the anguish of pain. The poem ends thus; / And as I hid behind an almond tree trembling/ I watched the coffin slowly rise/ And as the lid creaked open/… The Ghost of Zina floated out!
A less instinctive and gifted writer would have bored the reader with series of account of his pleas to Zina to make the relationship work. The use of imagery to capture his emotions to construct the relevant conditions of his imagination is partly responsible for the smooth, easy-to-read feeling that one gets.
He illustrates; / We tried our best/ With our different levels of understanding/ To sustain our dying love. / Like two severely crippled cripples/ Trying to teach each other/ How to walk!
The poetic voice leaves no doubt that the poet has been shown the other side of love, the attitude that could lead one never to love again. He writes; / I wish she knew/ The power of the candlelight dinners/ The significance of the flowers/ And of the quiet moments we spent alone./ I wish she knew/ What the box of chocolates meant/ The meaning of the teddy bears I sent/ And the need for the long garden strolls.
But that did not deter the lover as he tried all possible channels to make the relationship work. His attempt to save our relationship/ Could be likened/ To the efforts of a compassionate mouse/ Waiting to catch a two-ton elephant/ Falling from a thirteen story building!
In the rest of the poem which is divided into three parts, the author however, seemed to come to terms with the reality of what has befallen him as he says,
I left to distance… That which I would not say in words.
Many of the pieces would work better in performance on stage than being read on the pages. A rewarding reading of poems like: T’is too late, Was it love?, Whose fault?!, would involve their being read aloud, as though one were a conqueror.
Dada presents himself as a crusader in The Ghost of Zina, reaching out to those who must have been victims of a broken relationship that they gave so much to. In his author’s insights, he writes, “Having traversed various by-paths, I have come to the ultimate realization that love finds its essence in giving. In giving truthfully, selflessly, sincerely… even severely! … For, indeed and in truth… love is all!”
The design of the cover page, which is the painting of The Ghost of Zina in enactment, compliments the quality of production. The book is devoid of error of pagination and grammar. Its layout should serve as a guide to other publishers in Nigeria in order to be able to match works coming from elsewhere. Inserted in the beginning and the middle of the book are the directives to the author’s website for the true-life story of the poet and personalized best wishes greeting signed by the author to the reader.
As far as form goes, Dada could be said to be at his weakest. He favoured free verse above any other forms; he therefore should strive to give his readers reason perhaps in the next two years to celebrate a richer and more profound book of poetry. Poetry is justly referred to as the queen of the arts, because it is the shapeliest of all manifestations of the non-plastic arts.
The Ghost of Zina tends to unveil the poet’s aspiration to become a new giant in writing as he has over twenty literary works to his credit (yet to be published).
He considers The Ghost of Zina especially significant as the depth of the experiences chronicled served as a catalyst to the discovery of his literary potential.

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OKECHUKWU UWAEZUOKE - THIS DAY - JULY 9 2006

EDITORS CHOICE OF BOOK OF THE WEEK
JULY 9, 2006
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AUGUST 6 2006