Dami Ajayi
  • Profile
  • Books
    • A Woman’s Body is a Country
    • Clinical Blues
    • Affection & Other Accidents
  • Events
  • Tuesday Poetry
  • Writings
  • CV
  • Menu Menu

Affection & Other Accidents – A Poet’s Grief and Vulnerability watermarked in this collection of poems

11 July 2022/in Affection & Other Accidents

Dami Ajayi’s latest release “Affection & Other Accidents” is his third volume of poems, after his first volume “Clinical Blues” and his second collection, “A Woman’s Body is a Country” which were released to great acclaim.

This new release reveals a poet at the peak of his literary powers. Like the title, “Affection & Other Accidents,” the first few pages which comprise the title poem chronicles a poet in grief. Mourning a love gone sour.

The first poem gives us a peak of what to expect in this fine collection of poems- a poet who is a master storyteller, showing the multiplicity of his talents:

I

The party wound down; the crowd thinned out. Then you delivered an intimate speech about us, about getting engaged, about your missing engagement ring, about your unfaltering devotion to me & our aisle-bound affection & somehow, somehow, I found myself again kinking one knee, asking for your hand in marriage again. We have been here before. Not once.

Our human experiences are universal, be it falling in love, heartbreaks, grief, and death in equal measure. The poet introduces us to the turmoil of love, as alluded in the above, giving love a chance, hoping the affection would be aisle bound.

II

You picked the best place to have an argument. A train coach heading from Berlin to Cologne. You picked the best time too. The quiet time before travelers eased into siesta. You picked the best topic. But a black man & a black woman with a white audience observing their heated conversation?

The paragraph shows how love lilies become agonies as we traumatise over partners who are not willing to die to self. Would this not become an effigy of a dying love? Of affection built on quick-sand, where dirty laundries are washed in the full glare of the world, as postulated by Tolu’ A. Akinyemi in his collection of poems—“Never Marry a Writer”.

“A writer is a laundry man-

He will wash your dirty laundry without a fuss”

Would the verses not be part of the beauty or perils of marrying a writer? Having a seat in a poet’s hall of fame or shame.

In the third poem, the poet does more prognosis of an affection hitting the rocks:

The Colony House Rules arrived in spurts. Do not leave the light bulbs on. Do not leave skid marks on the porcelain. Do not leave used plates in the kitchen sink. Do not play music too loud. Do not sit. Do not write at night.

While the above sounds comical, the nuance expressed by the poet are some encumbrances everyday people encounter in the name of love. The tragicomedy of a failing love, the bondage of being caught in the entrapment of love, maybe Dami is on a mission to rescue many who are caught in the web of a dying love.

The fourth poem lay bare how we can unravel quickly with frailties clear to the naked eye. How a wounded heart makes us susceptible to falling out of control and how disillusionment sets in when true love becomes a mirage, and we become a shadow.

And the last poem was an obsequy of a dying love. “You quickly walked back into your Colony House without waiting for the final trail of my disappearance.”

Is that not the end of dying affection, of flowery words flowing from lips that once dripped honey and hearts, where innuendos and sweet nothings were a vestige? Before the final trail of disappearance.

In the poem, “Aubade to my Greying”, the last stanza: If I were God,/I would do it differently./Grant those who pray for beards, breasts & buttocks/their dream bodies.

Maybe we have found a panacea for people going under the knife, to dream bodies and living happily ever after. A poetic god-

There are a lot of poems that form the accidents of our human existence, whether it’s in the poem “Funeral Dressings”, “A Requiem”, “Birthday Elegy” (For Pius Adesanmi), “How To Grieve in Time” and many others. Whether it’s the grief of an untimely passing, a tribute or an elegy, the grief pressed on these pages is truly heartfelt.

Affection & Other Accidents is an intricate collection of poems, and the Nigerian writer and psychiatrist, Dami Ajayi, cements his place in the top echelon of African Literature.

Read more at Lion and Lilac
Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share by Mail
https://damiajayi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/lion-and-lilac.jpg 599 800 Dami Ajayi https://damiajayi.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Dami-Ajayi-Logo-WT.png Dami Ajayi2022-07-11 08:10:522022-07-11 11:26:30Affection & Other Accidents – A Poet’s Grief and Vulnerability watermarked in this collection of poems

Dami Ajayi

DAMI AJAYI

facebook  Twitter  Instagram  Amazon

Dami Ajayi finds a way to fuse being a writer into his busy doctor schedule. Known as Jolly Papa (JP for short) by his friends—a sobriquet he took from a song by Rex Lawson—the poet cum doctor cum music critic makes seamless transitions between these orbits around which his life rotates.

Learn more

Latest Tweets

Tweets by @JollyPaps1

© 2022 - Dami Ajayi
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
Love and Death in Dami Ajayi’s A Woman’s Body Is a CountrywawaThe Anatomy of Silence & Other Poems
Scroll to top

This website uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Accept settingsSettings

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy
Accept settingsHide notification only