Bibiani Books has released The Tragedy Of Being Born Beautiful to the Nigerian market. The book, an anthology that interprets human experiences from the African prism, touches diverse aspects of life.

Written by Cookey Iwuoha, the collection of poetry is divided into four parts — Dawn, Sunrise, Sunset and Twilight. In Dawn, the poet concentrates on abstract human relationships, while Sunrise takes a look at social injustice and the intricacies of emotion. Twilight reflects on the universal search for meaning, self and identity.

Much like the seasons of man, the poems alternate within themes such as love, anger, haplessness and heartbreak, using them to address the age-long questions of the purpose of life, man’s inhumanity to man, despair of the soul, hopelessness and the loss of self-esteem.

Known for his enigmatic style of replicating modernism on papyrus, the poet draws from the past to dissect current issues, infusing the analyses on the psyche of readers and making sure the ideas distill into their thought lives.

In this collection, a philosophical poem bearing the title of the book questions the source of evil in man, asking if man’s treacherous acts to fellow men is divine or are as a result of the experiences garnered from his environment — remote, immediate, wider.

In Odyssey, he tries to give his own definition of love, saying love goes beyond the words one can speak or emotions that one can feel and preach. According to him: “Love is the life one chooses to live unyielding and unbending till he ceases to breathe.

“Of what then can we make of that monosyllabic word, love?” he queries. The answer, he proffers is, “the poem is a good guide.”

In Mothers Of Lost Daughters, the poet notes that the Chibok girls and others kidnapped by Boko Haram insurgents reminisces the society, stressing that despite efforts put in to check insecurity, the people that live in the North East region of the country still sleep with one eye open.

“From Chibok, Dapchi to Zamfara and Yobe thousands of children have been kidnapped, colleges raided and villages razed in the name of gratification for illicit desires,” he states.

Other poems in the collection include: The Call In The Sound Of Running Waters, A Waking Africanness, Chants Of The Time Past And Present, Above In The Charging Clouds, The Act Of Losing Belief, among others, talk about African, the people, culture among others issues that do not only bring out the major problems of the Africa continent, but accentuates the its untapped resources.

Iwuoha, a journalist, dialogue facilitator, columnist and author, aims to use his works to reorient the African youths, make them see reasons they have to stay back in the continent to fight and address the system that is hindering the continent’s development.

This is his second collection of poems. His maiden literary work, The Contents Of Our Empty Graves, published in 2011, is a collection on social vices, love and justice.