Reviewed on 4/20/2025
★★★★★
In “Survivors of Daily Damnations,” Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi dissects the duality of loss and eternity. The opening moments directly address humans’ fading nature — “the burning sunset,/ and every diminishing.” The dusk has its own burning beauty. Later stanzas continue this idea of temporality and appreciation. The speaker narrates “lost lyrics” of the mother’s snore, life as a “cigar.” These dreamlike imageries grant the poem transcendent complexions while layering our fleeting experiences with sacred memories. Feranmi depicts us saving our past for the future: “we pocket the heart.” Yet even when we strive to hold on to them, the present always slips beneath our minds. She imagines us getting home like a stranger; all the childhood (“[tiptoeing] to your mother’s room”) is no longer there.
Nevertheless, there is a quiet transformation happening within us, with “the lilacs,/ the roses, and the thorns blooming in your mouth.” Memories have silently become a part of us. She urges us to cherish our paths, “[lighting the cigar] with the sun” and “[carrying] a stamp of your body.” Lost in the abyss of forgetfulness, the past still provides happiness and molds us into who we are. The ending gives life to this poem as a documentary of memories, something that resists oblivion. “I left [this poem] for you to live all over.”
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