Sanctificum

by Chris Abani

A self-described “zealot of optimism,” poet and best-selling novelist Chris Abani bravely travels the charged intersections of atrocity and love, politics and religion, loss and renewal. With language of devastating beauty and complexity, he investigates conflicted personal history and political tragedy, and how the human body fares against both.

A book-length sequence of linked poems, Sanctificum is Abani’s most intimate and ambitious book to date, a tour de force bringing together religious ritual, the Igbo language of his Nigerian homeland, and reggae rhythms in a complex, liturgical love song.

Genres: Poetry, Africa, African Literature, Literature

96 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2010

About the author

Christopher Abani (or Chris Abani) is a Nigerian author.

He was a political prisoner in Nigeria at various times during 1985 and 1991. At times he was held in solitary confinement and he was held on death row for some time after being sentenced to death for treason.

He is a Professor at the University of California, Riverside and the recipient of the PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, the 2001 Prince Claus Awards, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a California Book Award, a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. Selections of his poetry appear in the online journal Blackbird.

Reviews

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite among Abani’s published poetry collections and I think it might be because it is completely accessible. One doesn’t have to know anything about Chris Abani to understand the language and heartache and courage. “Om” appears first and has seven parts on five pages. I take one phrase from each:

"I never told anyone that every sliver of orange I ate
was preceded by words from high mass…"
and
"The dog’s black tongue was more terrifying than its teeth."
and
"Sorrow lodged like a splintered bullet next to the heart."
and
"Sand, where there is no water, can ablute,
washing grain by grain even the hardest stone of sin."
and
"The way a photograph cannot remember the living."
and
"Sanctificum."

Abani can talk about sadness, about places that are sad, without being sad:

A LETTER TO ROBERT PINSKY

This is wood, enchanted wood.
Still the fire scorches and we say wood
still the pain burns from the club
and then we say wood
still the planks dovetail and we caress
the smooth and the rough
sensuous, delectable, and yet sorrowful
and then we say wood.

My favorite poem is too long to quote, twelve sections on ten pages, called “Pilgrimage.” It talks of words and their meanings, faith and its lack, history and hope, fear and courage, love and rage. Well, I will quote just a little because it speaks to the sadness without being sad:

"Some may call me a pessimist, but I am not.
There is nothing gained from loss.
I drink tea in the shade and believe in poetry.
I am a zealot for optimism."

In a short poem near the end called “Dew,” Abani writes

"My desire is struggling up the mountain.
My fear is a shower of pebbles.
Your son is trying to be a good man, Mum.
Your son is going to be all right.
There are no names for red."

That is not the poem in its entirety, and it does not end there. But that phrase that appears again and again in Abani’s work is perplexing to me. I don’t know what he means, “there are no names for red.”

The real strength in Abani’s work is his willingness to see and not be ruined by the seeing. He has enough reserves to still give succor to those of us stumbling along beside him. "I have always envied the stigmata," he tells us of those wounds that will not heal…"I want to put my fingers in the wounds and swirl them around." And so he does.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a zealot for optimism.
- from "Pilgrimage"

I read Abani's short bio in the wonderful "The Face" series (The Face: Cartography of the Void) last year, and was very intrigued to read more of his writing. This National Poetry Month is the perfect time for that.
Abani writes with such grace and understanding. He has a deep social consciousness and awareness (and was a political prisoner in Nigeria, imprisoned for his writings and criticisms of the government), and this permeates his poems. Sanctificum shares much about his Nigerian and Igbo heritage.

Highlights:
-Revenant
-Divination
-Elephants
-Processional
-Descent

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

2021 Reading Challenge: owned but unread

[Rachelfm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Poetry as craft rather than spewed fridge magnets or obtuse navel gazing. Meaningful, riveting, relevant.

[Andrada · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently read and enjoyed Chris Abani’s essay The Face: Cartography of the Void and decided to give his other writing a chance. I settled on Sanctificum which touches on similar themes as his autobiographical essay. In it, Abani navigates the trauma of his past incarceration, his relationship to his parents and his childhood memories against the backdrop of his current mundane life in the US. The violence of the world and his own past haunt him, but he remains a confessed optimist, often prone to love and longing, with a strong belief in the cleansing power of poetry.

[cc · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is fog this morning. On my continent
children die. African children die every day.
It's what they do.
-- "Sacrament"

Monsters don't crowd your psyche
but rather sit awkwardly on the remote control,
too polite to get up and move it, until
the constantly changing channel is unbearable.
-- "Divination"

A Chicago Tribune obituary:
In lieu of flowers, please send acerbic letters to Republicans.
In the Red Square, Lenin is sprouting fungi.
King Oedipus to the barman: She wasn't all that.
-- "Revenant"

For fear of being loved we will kill the world.
-- "Renewal"

[Akshay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't reread many books, but I think this one I will definitely go back to. If not for anything else, for the way the lines sound in my mouth. Abani pours pain and delight into eachother so much that it startled me at random intervals as I read the poems. There's a lot of depth and subtlety that I cherish in this collection.

[Shawn Aebi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Struggles with violence, with the new mannerisms in a distracted country, and mostly struggles with the peace that religion pursues.

[lancelot · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this and chris abani will tell you everything about tenderness and sorrow. this is the body of christ. sanctificum.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting verse by a poet who spans several continents and cultures, and handles them all with grace.

By an African roadside, a woman
more skeleton than flesh squats.
Death wears down her resistance.
The sun tries to be merciful.

Abani's spare, unflinching verse helps you see these several worlds in new ways.

I don't know why I sing
in languages I cannot understand.
Fast-moving trains draw time ahead and
then there is the sea and the blue kite of horizon;
a perfect chalice for night
and the communion sliver of moon.

Chris Abani's work is both an ambassadorship and an offering of peace.

[Patti K · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 2010 volume of poetry is by the Nigerian writer Abani. It is a series of
linked sections with titles like Om, Divination, Revenant, Descent. There are
Latin mass quotatins interspersed and it is an exploration of God and where that
is in relation to the international crises and ravage. It is basically a love
poem that also includes tragedy. An anguished search for the divine, however
much he describes himself as a "zealot of optimism."

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful juxtaposition of image and utterance. So lovely--the pacing in this series is deft, the voice is intimate and speaks of family life, theological disillusionment, and political violence at once, movingly and successfully. Poems about Nigeria, Palestine, the U.S., the problems of ever knowing/reaching the memory of one's father and mother, of love and grief--and such terrific use of metaphor. These poems will break you open.

[Henry Marchand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read Chris Abani. Watch and listen to him read on YouTube. Watch and listen to him read in person if you can. This is a writer who matters. Poetry or prose, his use of language is masterful, his imagination and capacity for empathy apparently boundless. This book of poems is a fine place to make his acquaintance. Read it and you will read more of his work.

[Kate Vogl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and elegiac and powerful. I heard him at a reading for Hamline's Water-Stone Summer Workshop and have been looking forward to this read since then. Jotted down so many lines I wanted to remember. Loved it all.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always loved Abani's work. But this. But this.
Holy, holy, holy.

And fun to see names in the poem I know.

[Stacy]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/3734498

[Christina Olivares · Rating 4 out of 5]

yes, yes. love everything this man writes.

[cowgirl sushi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Chris Abani.

[kourtney erin]

stunning

[Echezonachukwu Nduka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent poetry.