Musings of a Tangled Tongue is a brave new entry, an exciting collection of poems that cut across a range of subjects: love, life, lust, adventure, work-life balance, etc. The fresh, exciting, mischievous, and experimental style of the author makes this a fun addition to any poetry lover's library.
"A lively and new voice sings of contemporary life in ways that are sometimes mischievous, sometimes brooding but always fresh and striking. In this debut collection, Yemi Adesanya has hit a rare note." Adebiyi Olusolape, Poetry Editor of Saraba Magazine.
“... genuinely well-written, stimulating, experimental, daring, and full of life and mischief, just like the writer herself.” Kola Tubosun, writer and linguist, blogger at http://www.ktravula.com/.
Yemi Adesanya enjoys reading, writing computer programs, playing Sudoku and working out; she is the inventor of The Game of Giants, and Jungle card games. She cannot seem to decide who is her favorite fictional character, Gregory House or Lincoln Rhyme.
In her other life, she disguises as an accountant and risk manager. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria, with her husband and children.
The author via Booktasters provided a copy of the eBook in exchange for an honest review.
Musing of a Tangled Tongue is an original collection of poetry. Yemi Adesanya brilliantly deals with the intensity of human emotions and life changing experiences. The reader will be drawn into her world immediately. The highs, the lows, the twists and the turns of one’s life are revealed with pure honesty. The poems are layered with love, passion, and humor. The poet uses her voice to reveal life’s journey. Adesayna writes of her gratitude as well—the reader will be grateful that she shared the gift of her poetry.
It is always a pleasure to stumble upon good poetry. Yemi Adesanya uses her poetry to critique classical chauvinist constructs of love, to create new spaces in old clichés, and to play with reader expectations. She offers a juxtaposition of Roses are red and violets are blue. She examines Eve’s motives in the Garden and views love from the mundane instead of the ideal world. These ideas and more allow Adesanya to critic a woman’s place in the world. She uses repetition of key words and phrases, such as in her poem “Evolution” where each verse starts with the phrase “In the beginning.” Repetition is used to provide emphasis. Adesanya also uses it in her poems to work slow changes. An example of this is, that the second part of the “In the beginning” phrase changes with each verse. This allows the author to move the poem from the biblical “In the beginning was a word” to the human “In the beginning was a dunce.” Adesanya also uses alliteration such as “buried ballad” to help the flow of her poems. This along with the use of euphonic or nice sounding words such as “scrumptious” cause the poem “Echoes from a Buried Balled” to read as if it is singing. Adesanya uses a variety of rhyme schemes but often breaks out of them by the end of the poem. This suggests that she is using the schemes to show how words refuse to be confined. Her poems have rhythm similar to spoken word poetry and often evoke that genre. She uses time and colour words to draw the reader into her work. Her poetry considers the ties between love and death. It includes body imagery that invokes physicality and movement. The use of internal rhymes adds to the flow of the poems and solidifies the feel of orality. Adasanya’s adjective heavy poetry at times reflects purple prose, but, like her use of other familiar forms, she reflects it only to challenge it. Adesanya is careful with her word choice and uses precise language in her descriptions. This is an emerging poet to watch closely in the coming years. She understands language and clearly enjoys playing with it. Her poems are a joy to contemplate.
I launched into Musings of a Tangled Tongue as soon as it downloaded into my device. My reading ritual usually starts with randomly flipping through a new book, subconsciously expecting something to pique my attention, maybe a well-constructed sentence, maybe an odd idea, maybe some eccentric wordings, maybe an amusing quote, just anything to quickly advertise a book as worthy of my time. In this collection, the poem titled “Jack and Jill,” did the trick. Goofy like I love my rapports, mischievous like the literary works I love to return to, short and punchy like I love social media posts, this risqué poem served the first salvo from the collection. I laughed out after reading it and had to return to it to be sure I had not missed any hidden meaning, beyond its obvious naughtiness. Alas, no hidden meaning. It is what it is, a sexual tryst between two lovable characters of a famous nursery rhyme:
Jack and Jill went off the grid To pet a rampant boner. Jack came first and spilled his spunk Then Jill came, trembling after.
I flipped to “No Kidding,” a charming poem that evokes a mother’s devotion and admonition to her child. She speaks of her responsibility as a guide and guard of her child life’s journey and acknowledges, in the second verse, that the duty comes with chastisement:
Put my life on the line to have you, My hands on the grind to raise you, My feet on the pedals I’ll drive you, Upward and forward You must go.
I’ll scream and wait to right you. My hands are here they’ll flog you. My feet on the path to guide you, Uptight and forthright You must stand.
My already piqued fascination about the collection (I must confess that “Jack and Jill” deceived me into thinking that I might be on a poetic Kama Sutra ride) was soon dulled by “Monday Madness,” a killjoy and bad-hair-day poem about the typical complaints of one caught in the throes of corporate monotony.
Stuck in a graveyard meeting … Can’t keep dancing this tango In a half broken stiletto
A similar poem is “Hype Brigade,” which depicts a typical corporate lifecycle.
The collection’s major triumphs are its accessible themes and language. Especially those about love. I imagine Yemi reading “I Want to Love Your” at a spoken-word performance, maybe accompanied by guitar and conga.
The themes are simple and unpretentious, not as one expects from poets attempting lofty poetic experiments with heavy themes, say, philosophy, dark contemplations, or even of expressing mundane themes with manipulation of language to the point of boredom.
I might be too effusive about this collection, but the poems are somewhat a reverse of the type of poetry I am familiar with, the type that assumes a smug pose, overwrought in structure and expressions, tense in mood, brain-tasking—poems considered as literary gold-standard. We all know them.
But the collection suffers too. I will get to that shortly.
These poems suggest that Adesanya is attuned to creating from playfulness and restiveness, say, about being a romantic and sensitive lover, or occupying herself with existential concerns, or just musing over a reality that bears pressure on the creative process, with humor too. In this case, poetry becomes an act—art too—of making sense of the world, a spiteful response too, to that which tugs on reflections.
Besides its shortage on linguistic ambitions, it is an impressive publication that adds the author to a list of new age Nigerian poets surprising the world with poetic resourcefulness—Dami Ajayi and his dazzling devotion to allusions drawn from medicine, pop culture, social media, street lingos; Jumoke Verissimo and her treatment of the human condition like a tales-by-moonlight affair; and the textural lightness of Sadiq Alabi’s poems that break Remi Raji-like ideas into new age intelligibility.
On technique and stylistic ambition, I would score the collection a six-over-ten. The free-flowing poems, especially “Here Lies Lust”, “McHunger”, “Ms. Adventure”, “Crackles if Soulful Melody” are impressive exceptions. An insistence on end rhymes is charming on some poems—“Loafday”, “Iyke the Kite”, “Forever Living” but distracting on others like “It’s Changed the Same”, and “Sleepless Nights.” This point may be ignored, as I tend to be cynical about poems that have structural allegiance to European poetic forms. I just want the flow, not technical mascara. These days, I associate them with original photos made less original by Instagram filters. Anyone that picks this book will notice I’ve ignored commenting on the “serious” poems like “Death Left You a Note”, “Kahlo’s Picasso”, and the praise song, “Thank a Brave Soldier.” If I edited the work, I would leave them out. They got in the way of my amusement. In my world, Kama Sutra is not compatible with Karate.
One more risqué poem, and we can end this piece. “Play With Me” might be the advances that led to “Jack and Jill":
Love me like a butterfly Fragile wings and colorful bits Touch my soft parts and electrify Spill your pollens and let us bloom … Love my (sic) like a bestseller My intricate lines, yours to explore Flip my pages like a sheet propeller Show what you know and learn my ropes
With Musings of a Tangled Tongue, Adesanya registers herself as a fun poet. If I ever have the right to suggest what her next collection should be, I’d say make it a single-theme work, on either Love or Motherhood. Or a paean on Sex. It will sell.
The Musings of a Tangled Tongue; prittle-prattle and pickled poems, is a collection of poems that has a fine blend of contemporary styles, imageries and non-technical styles. Your sense of imagination, adventure and appreciation of natural beauty is titillated when you avail yourself this wonderful work of art. In today’s boisterous world, everyone needs some moment of sanity when the physical body is numbed and the mind is gainfully engaged; a point where Yemi Adesanya's Musing... readily appears! The poet’s choice of words is carefully crafted to give fillip to natural instinct to reminisce and evoke clearer thoughts on life, nature and development. Every reader will agree on one thing, that regardless of the walk of life one might occupy, a good number of the poems resonate!
Inspite of the “Sleepless Nights” and “Monday Madness”, “Bless This Day” I read through Yemi’s Musing to clear all “Mind Mirage”. Now, “No Kidding”, I am not a “Hype Brigade”. I will read these poems over and over again with a better and newer perspective on every theme addressed. It is a book that reveals the nuances & mischief of men and jolts the reader to reconsider his ways. Jerrie, a lover of good work of Arts!
Growing up as a Nigerian book enthusiast & budding bibliophile, I had always struggled to appreciate the full beauty of foreign poetry. Descriptions of summer Sundays, the winter winds & beautiful Springs always eluded me for the most obvious reasons - I'd only ever experienced Harmattan & Western Nigeria's deep seated rainfall. So when I got the chance to read a collection of poems by a thoroughbred Nigerian, I knew I was in for a happy treat. And I wasn't disappointed. Musings of A Tangled Tongue gave me relatable poetry. Mixed with healthy doses of brilliant wordplay & wonderful puns. It truly was a masterful piece of writing. And the fact that I could read a few lines & give a wry smile to myself, as if to say "I saw what you did there Yemi, I got you", was the most beautiful thing about it for me.
Musings of a tangled tongue was the whole package from easy lay man poems you can take at face value to ambiguous double entendre with various interpretations padded with humor, naughty innuendos and serious life issues at the same time while bringing in societal events into play every now and then, shows the writer is in synch with the environment. The free flowing fluidity of the poem makes it easy to glide through without having to be a psychic before understanding the writer’s train of thought. From Monday madness and Hype Brigade which gave words to my thoughts about Mondays the rat race, unnecessary hassle and the constant cycle of a corporate world. The seriousness gets watered down by jack and jill giving two meanings to the poem and we finally get to rest with loafday
This book is me when i was born This book is me when i needed answers to some of life's nagging queustions This book is me on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday This book is me when i first fell in love This book is me when i fell out of love This book is me when i needed humour This book is my politics This book is me when i needed a word of encouragement This book is my general knowledge This book is my innuendo
This book is relatable.
Flippping throught the pages, seeing myself through the eyes of the author in flowing words dancing to the tunes of a master drummer.
I received this book free in exchange for an honest review. I was kean to read something different and since I seldom read poetry this was going to be ideal. It was a good choice. As a child I often read Spike Milligan, delighting in a wonderful, amusing world he created. This book although not like Spike Milligan, gave me that feeling from childhood, took me right back to those hot summer days. The poems were often amusing, some a little naughty! But all easy to read. I feel I shall often revisit this book and will find verses stuck in my head. A brilliant book, well done.
I think that poetry should be savoured, bit by bit, like a decadent desert. If it is good poetry you will find yourself wanting more, and, like that dessert, you look forward to another one. The poems in Musings of a Tangled Tongue were just like that for me. I "tasted", I enjoyed, and I savoured each one. I am always on the lookout for a good book of poems but they really are few and far between. When I was given a chance to read and review this one I hoped for a treat and was pleased that it was so very good. I sincerely hope for more from this delightful author.
The author of Musings of a Tangled Tongue provides humor, wonder and insight with her poems. As a writer myself, whom writes poetry from time to time I can say these poems managed to not only catch your attention but you'll be able to declare a handful of poems to be your favorite. My top favorite poems are "World of Hypocrites", "Magic Lived Here" and "No Kidding". Sometimes we feel poetry is confusing, bleak or too serious but this book is none of the above. So give it a shot, I'm sure you will like it as much as I did.
I enjoyed reading through the poem collections in Yemi’s Musings of a Tangled Tongue.
I was glued to the book from the prologue to the very last page. I particularly liked the ‘Monday Madness’, ‘Loafday,’ ‘Hype Brigade’, ‘World of Hyprocrites’, ‘No Kidding’, ‘Lessons’ and ‘Old Number’ poems; because I could relate with the pictures painted.
Oh yes, I also love ‘Mind Mirage’; frank, funny and very clear message. I look forward to reading more of Yemi’s poems.
Didn't remember that I enjoyed poems till I read this book. It drew me in with every read.. especially the forst two poems. The words were twisted commendably. Hallelujah and Monday madness were my absolute favourites! Good work!
Fascination led me to look forward to whatever it was the title was all about. Prittle Prattle? Or just post-pickled babble? Interestingly it was on the same night I first read the lyrics of “When Doves Cry”, and the anticipation was well watched both by this Prince classic and the princely work of the author with whom I have shared very delightful versifications on Twitter via @brunoegwumba .
Suffice to say, I enjoyed my flight into the “Musings of a Tangled Tongue” with 55 sundry stopovers, spread across all of 72 pages. Literally speaking, I was “Slayed by a Muse”. Her unique style left me yearning to revisit each and every stopover that is the collection of poems. I still do.
In all I applaud the efforts that went into making this maiden flight a satisfying one although I met strong storms that left me somewhat spooked at some points. At the time I started reading this collection, I had tweeted rather ominously “There are things that are scarily as certain as gravity…too troubling to think about”. I was referring to “Death Left You a Note”. And then moments later I learn of Papa Wemba. Selah.
I might seem awfully critically of the author’s attempts at free verse, please don’t blame me. Hold Geoffrey Chaucer responsible. But like the father of English Poetry, this author easily assaults you with “many imagined situations, some thoughts and experiences, a few idle notions” going from the evocative to the provocative. Just imagine what she did to our innocent nursery rhyme “Jack and Jill”.
And then she turns on us in the refreshingly disturbing “Snoring is the devil’s chorus”. Well…maybe some of us (and Yes I snore …at least they say I do). LOL. But the author doesn’t seem to realize that asking us to “please sing a new tune” is hilarious? OK. We all don’t snore but you have been fairly advised. “Musings of a Tangled Tongue” has got some fun for everyone.
My favorite poem? None! And that is only because they are legion, well in the region of more than one! Check out the flowing end-rhymes in the very thematic “Lessons”, “No Kidding”, “Sleepless Nights”, “World of Hypocrites”, or “Loafday” amongst others. Every stopover has a nugget.
My recommendation… … get a copy, fasten your seatbelt and enjoy!
I can nearly always find something toothsome in book of poetry, whether new or old. It was hard to find anything I just loved in this collection. The writing style was a little off for me as I prefer less rhyming. I wonder if this would have been more digestible if read aloud? Was this meant as spoken word instead? It's hard to say, but I was disappointed. I don't know that I will reach for this book again in hopes of savoring the contents.
Hopefully others will enjoy it more than I and offer a more positive review.
I received this book through Booktasters, and it took me nearly a year to read! While most of that delay is due to personal busyness, part was due to the difficulty of the language and subject matter. Romance-focused poetry is rather tricky for me to understand, and the poems all blended together. However! The author uses charmingly colorful language and wordplay to create an interesting and engaging collection.