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A review by theeuphoriczat
Manorism by Yomi Sode
5.0
Exquisite, remarkable, amazing, delectable, and more. I really dont want to say much because this is one that you need to experience yourself. I was fortunate to attend a reading event with the Author himself and it really brought each of these poems to life and the thread between each poetry in this collection!
As a Yoruba girl, I am so happy to read this book. It starts out in my mother tongue, and it just made me so giddy. Anyways, this is collection that centres and revolves around contemporary Black masculinity, race, fragility, family & community, sexuality, boyhood, fatherhood, Black bodies, fear of death, illness, culture, death and loss.
This is a masterclass in parallel circuitry, and it was beautifully electric. Yomi draws on the Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio the famous Italian painter who was able to smoothly escape from the gallows even after killing a man that insulted his honour and person. He was able to use his talent (painting) to buy his freedom. Yomi asks and, in a sense, answers in this collection, why it is easy for a white man to escape his wrongdoing, while a Black man is not given the same opportunity. Why does the fear that the white man harbour in his heart, lead to the death or oppression of the Black man? Why have black men decided to internalise and exhibit the fragility born of ignorance and privileged that the white man has without realising that because of their Blackness they are not perceived the same?
If Caravaggio can kill a man because of his honour, the Black man does not dare do the same.
Some of my favourite poems are "PC Joshua Savage Pulls Leon Fontana Over for a Routine Check" ; wherein he says "What is there to teach white men who do not feel their power? Is it our fault or theirs that in confrontation they feel less empire, more artifact - less demigod and more a future meme? another is "Manorism II: A Thanos Theory" ; wherein he says "Mocking a movement because its's not his problem. Blud, who needs this fantasy, when an Empire carved its narrative on Black lives for generation, so deep it's still her with us, & it loops through me".
I highly recommend this book.
As a Yoruba girl, I am so happy to read this book. It starts out in my mother tongue, and it just made me so giddy. Anyways, this is collection that centres and revolves around contemporary Black masculinity, race, fragility, family & community, sexuality, boyhood, fatherhood, Black bodies, fear of death, illness, culture, death and loss.
This is a masterclass in parallel circuitry, and it was beautifully electric. Yomi draws on the Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio the famous Italian painter who was able to smoothly escape from the gallows even after killing a man that insulted his honour and person. He was able to use his talent (painting) to buy his freedom. Yomi asks and, in a sense, answers in this collection, why it is easy for a white man to escape his wrongdoing, while a Black man is not given the same opportunity. Why does the fear that the white man harbour in his heart, lead to the death or oppression of the Black man? Why have black men decided to internalise and exhibit the fragility born of ignorance and privileged that the white man has without realising that because of their Blackness they are not perceived the same?
If Caravaggio can kill a man because of his honour, the Black man does not dare do the same.
Some of my favourite poems are "PC Joshua Savage Pulls Leon Fontana Over for a Routine Check" ; wherein he says "What is there to teach white men who do not feel their power? Is it our fault or theirs that in confrontation they feel less empire, more artifact - less demigod and more a future meme? another is "Manorism II: A Thanos Theory" ; wherein he says "Mocking a movement because its's not his problem. Blud, who needs this fantasy, when an Empire carved its narrative on Black lives for generation, so deep it's still her with us, & it loops through me".
I highly recommend this book.