Title of Book: Girls And The Silhouette of Form

Author: Star Zahra

Publisher: MASOBE

Place of Publication: Surulere, Lagos

Country: Nigeria

ISBN: 978-978-60501-0-2

Year of Publication: 2024

No of Pages: 73

Copyright: Star Zahra

Imprint: Masobe Books and Logistics Limited

Cover Design by: Amina Gimba

Reviewer: Salamatu Sule

Books and their plots live perpetually in the present, weaving the threads of history into the tapestry of contemporary life of time and place and the people in it. So too is the artistry of the pointillist poet, Star Zahra, whose words illuminate the fragments of moments, piecing them into timeless reflections that speak to the now.

The evolution of Star Zahra since her debut publication(Dance of Dawn, Star Okpe, 2018)  published by StarWrite Production has been remarkable having received positive feedback from the reading public, the being of a STAR dazzles before the galaxies, building her territory and owning it in her new collection Girls and the Silhouette of Form.

Girls and the Silhouette of Form sparks curiosity, when you look at the beautiful cover design of lilies on a field of Coral and Salmon Pink underneath a pastel of Sea Green. It is a tributary collection of poems about memories of home, pain, love, friendship and growth. There’s an aspect or aspects of Pointillism in words that dance to the wind in lines and verses making the poem whole. It makes me wonder how form shifts to adapt to gravitate from hopelessness to hope.

Ihotu

“Love is the thing that names you

Beloved, joy, ekum ipeche oma

It is the owl

Despite hate from men

Returning to the arms of his night” – Line 5, pg. 52, GATSOF

This collection transcends mere metaphors, creating vivid mental pictures that linger in readers’ minds but go on to captivate their visual senses. It is akin to a painter crafting an image to be seen, but here, a poet weaves words for us to feel. I also think there’s the use of splitting the personalities of the poet personae.

Zahara’s ability to construct narratives through different perspectives, seamlessly blending the external observer with internal reflections, shows pointillism’s focus on the micro (dots) and macro (pictures through images) and the “metaphorical self”.  We observe the girl-child voice of the poet personae, the crusader voice advocating for women and the wife and mother voice narrating the sour, turbulent memories of leaving the past behind while embracing the future.

The poet places blocks of words like dotted lines as the messages align to form a whole. In the poem Ugbede and Tanzania, the “woman and wife” voice is succinctly amplified.

 

Take a read of a few lines of the opening poem What a Poem Knows about Death as it captures words in pictures beyond metaphors:

“They never knew I was the seventh line of her last poem.

                           The night she died, her mother gathered her books together in a sack,

                            threw in her waist beads and her favourite ball pen.

                            I listened. Poems have ears just so you know. And when I felt the heat of flames

                            running towards me in excitement, I knew that my metaphoric

                            self was soon to be destroyed”

                                                                 – GATSOF, Pg., 1

Pointillist poetry parallels the art of visual painting but gives the reader a sense of participation to connect the dots and understand the poem. This collection has a way of evoking a mood, emotion, or fleeting moment while also providing us with narration. Star is very intentional about the subject and object of every poem. Phenomenally, she creates a rhetorical shift or volta which allows the reader to see the subject of her characters this is vivid in the poem Little Girls:

We grew up learning how to kiss slow,

Not the fast ravenous kind

We let our tongue taste waters,

Felt the lips like they were stones floating

In line (7) of this poem, a dramatic shift takes place:

“I told Amira to be careful

To hold her breasts, secure, in the cups

When the confluence is being roiled

Not everyone knows how to kiss, slow

So next thing we see,

She swallowed the river for a sip”

Line7-12, pg. 6, GATSOF

The shift in the poet’s narrative style reflects a deeper explanation of human experiences—how delicate and intentional acts of connection (kissing slow) can be disrupted by the uncontrollable chaos of life (the roiled confluence). The poem contrasts the sweetness of learning and savouring with the dangers of haste, consumption, or underestimating life’s challenges for which the girl-child is usually the victim. At the end of it all, she shames her family. It also portends a looming danger – the roiled confluence

The use of symbolism and juxtaposition in this poem also makes it unique. “She swallowed the river for a sip” is powerful as it encapsulates the danger of underestimating overwhelming forces. The act of “swallowing the river” contrasts with the earlier slow savouring of intimacy and suggests an unpreparedness for a probable eventuality.

This collection also contains human experiences and the societal factors mitigating progress. The Poem, Of Bad News and a Country, Anjenu   

Reading this collection is akin to eating assorted meals, not knowing what or where to start eating. The poet who also lives inside the universe of this collection, takes us on a rollercoaster of memories and experiences and of love in a collage of the good times, and of the not good but how every moment means that for a falling star, there’s always that rising STAR that illuminates the sky as the galaxies dazzles.

Madala

The sun has become brightened beads

Wriggling around your waist for freedom, Az-Zahra.

You are a crescent of duas made out of trials

And dirges of endings that never ended.-1-4

Az-Zahra,

What beauty is perfect that withers with time?

Yours is a Madala!

                                  Line 5-7, pg. 22, GATSOF

The Silhouette of Form the eponymous fragment title is poignant to this tributary for growth:

I have walked a long way

From silence to the chaos that only growth knows

I have dreamed past dawn into dusk and night

Only to wake to the memories of pain

That do not hurt anymore.-line 1-5, pg., 44 DATSOF

The enjambment, the pause, and the dancing of words as they SHATTER or BEND in the collection are bewitching and hold a spellbound reader. For those not into reading poetry because of its complex nature and style, this book begs you to endure while you participate and be immersed in its world.