"Poeta: Sonetas and Sonnets" is a groundbreaking collection of 303 poems that introduces the innovative soneta form while also embracing traditional sonnets. Divided into six movements - Monsoon, Wildfire, Drought, Eclipse, Blossom, and Prisma - the book takes readers on a powerful journey through contemporary social issues, personal reflections, and universal human experiences.
Olatinpo's verses span a wide emotional and thematic range, from searing commentaries on racial injustice and global conflicts to intimate explorations of love, identity, the fight for justice and the creative process. The collection seamlessly blends African and Western cultural influences, offering a unique perspective on our interconnected world.
The soneta, a six-line form with specific constraints, allows for concentrated bursts of imagery and emotion, while the sonnets in the final section showcase the poet's versatility and connection to literary tradition. Throughout, Olatinpo's language is both accessible and profound, employing vivid imagery and skillful wordplay to create memorable, impactful poetry.
"Poeta" is not just a book of poems, but a testament to the power of words to illuminate our shared humanity, challenge injustice, and imagine a more equitable world. It's a collection that speaks to the complexities of modern life while remaining rooted in timeless poetic craftsmanship.
"Poeta: Sonetas and Sonnets" is a groundbreaking collection of 303 poems that introduces the innovative soneta form while also embracing traditional sonnets. Divided into six movements - Monsoon, Wildfire, Drought, Eclipse, Blossom, and Prisma - the book takes readers on a powerful journey through contemporary social issues, personal reflections, and universal human experiences.
Olatinpo's verses span a wide emotional and thematic range, from searing commentaries on racial injustice and global conflicts to intimate explorations of love, identity, the fight for justice and the creative process. The collection seamlessly blends African and Western cultural influences, offering a unique perspective on our interconnected world.
The soneta, a six-line form with specific constraints, allows for concentrated bursts of imagery and emotion, while the sonnets in the final section showcase the poet's versatility and connection to literary tradition. Throughout, Olatinpo's language is both accessible and profound, employing vivid imagery and skillful wordplay to create memorable, impactful poetry.
"Poeta" is not just a book of poems, but a testament to the power of words to illuminate our shared humanity, challenge injustice, and imagine a more equitable world. It's a collection that speaks to the complexities of modern life while remaining rooted in timeless poetic craftsmanship.
Soneta 1
I write to you in this language
I do not own. But have made my own.
This language that sits in the nether of my tongue,
Transits between the world and me. This anglophone.
This microphone that straitens the range of my thoughts,
Phrases my weighty words in foreign knots.
Soneta 2
I have the pen and I have the breath,
So I write to bear witness unto the death,
Inscribe the name of the mother buried in the rubble,
Her daughter bereaved and troubled by the struggle,
To feed a brother that suckles, comfort their father:
That these in vain would not have suffered, forgotten, forever.
Soneta 3
Don’t wake them up, the children are sleeping
Covered in debris, from the bombing of the camp;
The children are sleeping, bombed to sleep while they’re playing,
“Pass me the ball! I’m Deschamps, I’m the champ!”
The children are sleeping, and cannot be woken.
Cold bodies — lying in the ruins. Broken.
Soneta 4
My child, talk to me, speak to me,—please,
I’m begging you, don’t leave me in grief,
Without your peace, open your eyes and sneeze,
Come back to me, play with me, give me relief,
Like cool in June that breaks the heat, don’t depart!
The bomb is done, but you are gone, my sweetheart.
Soneta 5
My husband and my brother went to the market
At eight in the morning, looking for anything to buy:
Flour, pasta, diaper, tampon, water, sugar, charger,
Anything, anything to keep from dying by a rocket.
It’s now two in the afternoon; where did they die?
Children are hungry, Teta is waiting. Come home, Imad, Yasser!
Soneta 6
We’ve been hiding in the basement for days
And it’s time to go up — kids are getting sick.
We’ve had nothing to give them and are quite malaise.
The roads are littered with sand, sewage, and bodies; Thick
With the smell of rotting flesh and burning buildings.
Made it across the border … but left many in bombings.
Soneta 7
We cannot fly, so they fly over us
And bombard us. Trapped like sardines in a can.
They drop bombs on us, like a salesman his leaflets.
Homes are shattered, bones are battered, souls are furious;
Can’t look up to the sky, to spare our lifespan,
So we stare down at our graves, chalk our silhouettes.
Soneta 8
It’s a march of sorrows, for we must leave tomorrow
Follow the scent of water, to dig a burrow
Within the desert, like a lizard, in Sinai.
The borders are shut, shelters are bombed,—like a fly,
Swat us with drones, to kick us out our homes,
Leave this land of ours, to die like worms.
Soneta 9
They told us to move south or die fast
(Be buried beneath the rooms of our own homes),
So with food in our mouths, babies on our backs,
We marched south, with all we owned, dragged our bones;
Now, we are here, packed like grain,—then, it rains,
BOOM! BOOM!! BOOM!!! The ground receives our brains.
Soneta 10
He has to come, she can’t delay, grabs her shawl
But Ahmed is breeched, cannot be switched, sees some blood.
The roads are closed, blown out by drones, she’s all
Alone, so she starts to scream, prays hard to God.
With one last breath, she screams out aloud —
Boy lands on feet. Serenades his mom … Mama, I’m proud!
Pelumi Olatinpo’s Poeta Soneta is a staggering achievement, not only in its impressive length for a single-author poetry collection (over 300 pages), but also in its masterful illustration of our contemporary moment. As a poet deeply concerned with the complexities and horror of the war in Gaza, racism in America, love, longing, grief, faith, the rise of artificial intelligence in art, and the craft of poetry itself, Olatinpo takes on a remarkable multitude of subjects and perspectives. All of these he unpacks and connects with an innovative approach to form: his sonetas and unique treatments of the sonnet.
“I find freedom in constraint,” Olatinpo writes in “Soneta 208.” Like a growing number of contemporary poets, finds tremendous liberty of exploration within the parameters of traditional and experimental formal poetry. As his writes in his introduction, the soneta (which populates the majority of the collection) is “an innovative poetic form that draws inspiration from the classic sonnet and the musical sonata.” It is a combination of formal reference points that emphasizes compression and deeply condensed language to reveal the intimacy of moments within vast, often tumultuous contexts.
These formally tight moments are organized in such a way that the recurring themes of the book mix and move together, flow in and out of one another. And the effect is a realistic, almost diaristic record of how the attentive individual experiences modern life. One moment, we are full of life and love in our own domestic settings. In the next, we feel the atrocity and violence done to people in our communities and abroad. Olatinpo feels and understands these subjects intensely and personally while drawing them as interconnected in today’s consciousness.
Throughout the book, Olatinpo reveals the myriad of artistic mentors and cultural affections that inform his work. Song lyrics, scripture, recurring allusions to the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, and nods to Shakespeare’s own sonnet-writing pepper the collection. Olatinpo’s specific reverence for Shakespeare becomes especially evident in the collection’s final movement of sonnets. Here, the poet most allows himself to play with the vernacular of Shakespeare’s pages. At one point, the poet asks, “WHY as the Bard do I write/ And my style few departures take?” It is an interesting question, but one that ties back to Olatinpo’s use of tight poetic form—there is a bounty of creativity and play tapped when traditional elements guide the exploration of what we feel and see in the now.
Poeta Soneta is a remarkable collection. And Olatinpo is something of a formal genius. To read this book is to experience not only beautiful poetry, but also the beauty of poetic thinking through the union of close attention to the world of today and careful devotion to the craft of composition.