Preface

Preface

‘The Unfaithful Bride' is a dramatic collection of poems that encapsulates the palpable indifference between pastor and his bride. It is imbued on the unfaithfulness of the rider's bride, who has never meant good for her lord. As a result, the poem is a metaphysical piece of art wherein the poet uses a mechanical object to articulate the phenomenon of nuptial indifferences between a couple. There is no direct relationship between a motorcycle and a bride, but through the use of metaphors, the poet illustrates a clear link between the two seemingly unrelated ideas. To his credit, the poet Fortune Nwaiwu, is able to achieve this very well. The poet is believed to have been a fan or an avid reader of George Herbert’s poems, especially that of his “Pulley”.

In this collection of poems, the poet attempts to convey the pain and suffering some pastors undergo during the course of their ministerial careers. The poet-persona laments on the manner in which his motorcycle has disgraced and disillusioned him before the eyes of men. Despite spending a substantial amount of money to repair his motorcycle, the poet-persona still feels dissatisfied as he pushes the spoiled motorcycle to a far distance, sweating profusely. The poet then threatens to sell his motorcycle before it makes him go bald.

Interestingly, both the pastor and his bride are bewitched. The pastor is bewitched by the beauty of his bride, which is why he paid her bride price. On the other hand, the pastor's bride was bewitched by some evil men in order to prevent the man of God from efficiently piloting his ministerial affairs. Here, it can be surmised that it is not only human beings that endure or suffer, even some humans, through inanimate primates, are not impervious to such temptations as well.

The bride is seen as a wilful, wayward woman who had had a husband before her beauty enamoured the pastor. Thereafter, she is abandoned. She wanders in Aba, a commercial centre in Abia State, where she prostituted herself with lovers. This is really enshrined in the fact that when one buys a fairly used item such as a motorcycle, the machine typifying the woman is believed to have had lovers. Since KYMCO, the motorcycle could not serve her lord, which leaves him stranded on roads and heaps shame on him, she is then viewed as an unfaithful bride. 

However, this literary piece of art is written in a plain language, more of prosaic, although it is redolent of poetic style and forms. The poet's thoughts are very concise, which are arranged in lines and stanzas, albeit with unequal lengths. This is the reason why no unified or definite sets of rhyme schemes are observed. The rhythms are felt by repeating words that have added more beauty to the musicality of the poem. Such repetitions help the poem flow better, and enable readers to flow concomitantly to discover some semantic and metaphorical extensions encrypted in the poem. Since this poem uses metaphorical extensions, readers can read and interpret it in myriad ways, depending on their state of mind.

Fortune Nwaiwu.