Morphing grief in Sa'ada's language (a poetic analysis)


Morphing grief in Sa’ada’s language 

This a poetic analysis by Orcas press featuring a poem by Sa’ada Isa Yahaya on Kalahari review,July 2023. Sa’ada writes a poem titled “How I morph grief into beauty”. A poem contrasting beauty and grief. She starts

“The sky void of fireflies of the heavenly bodies was installed into my supine body”

This line presents to us, the absence of glee and hope. Fireflies are insects known to bear light in the dark and act as a glint of light their absence signified a thick dimness Grief ushered in. There's a contrast of two bodies “The heavenly bodies" and the "supine body” The heavenly bodies strongly referred to the Sun, the moon, the stars (a depiction of the creation story) while the supine body portrayed the weak soul of the poetic personae lying down. We are made to feel the personae was looking up to the sky and thinking about grief and how it bore a certainty of voidness. 
The next line
“Now I hold shadows in my tongue" Shadows, stand as a metaphor for ghosts (ghosts are fictional characters often believed to represent dead people) To bear on the tongue means “To carry or hold words or thoughts ready to speak” The personae had a lot to say to the people already dead but is suppressed by tears (wet sand) , ‘ I chew wet sand and morph them into a clan.’ Wet sand here could also mean sand wet with blood of the dead people the personae held dear. The line that follows invites us into a trance or a ritual of healing.
“Grandma slits my palm
and she tongues into me
The lines on them are words from war…”
“tongues into” here means to whisper. The grandma although unclear whether the grandma was alive or dead tells the personae words from war which means  the personae's grief was an aftermath of war which led to the death of the personae's loved ones. The grandma teaches the personae how to 
“not bear this name" 
the question which name? but it is quite easy to guess with the preceding lines that the grandma referred to the name grief had given the personae “a sky void of fireflies of the heavenly bodies" Finally the personae is taught how to greet grief and mould it into beauty and the incomplete question of how? is left to the readers. 
Sa'ada communicates to us that grief isn't permanent, we could mould it into beauty although she leaves us with so many questions at the end of her poem.

Bio (source: Kalahari review)
Sa’ada Isa Yahaya is a Seventeen year old Nigerian teen author, a poet and a spoken word artist. She hails from Okene local government area of Kogi state. She is the second runner up for the 2023 National Creative writing competition for secondary schools, an author at spillwords and a finalist for the National poetry month contest at under the madness magazine. In 2022, she was the second runner up for the Nigeria Prose Prize for teen authors. In 2023, she was the winner of the Nigeria prose prize for teen authors with her second book(Agnes). She was also the winner of the on the spot poetry writing and also the Most Valuable Contestant (female) at the fifth edition of the Hadiza Ibrahim Aliyu School Festival(HIASFEST).  






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