Jerry Chiemeke’s Poetic Exploration of Love’s Complexity in Notes for Nnedimma

By Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

Notes for Nnedimma by Jerry Chiemeke, published in September 2019 by The Baron’s Cafe, isn’t just a beguiling body of poetry with subtle diction, alluring metaphors or rainbow imagery, but a fascinating segmentation of feelings.

The poetry collection is divided into several segments, a perfect instrument of awareness for the readers. It gives them a notion of what to encounter with each level of emotional transition where the poet finds himself.

The opening and first section embody the elements of softness, love, and lust. In the poem “Let Me”, Chiemeke speaks with vulnerability and at the same time provides a window into the intensity of his desire:

“Let me search for home in strange places
  let me show you parts of you in unexplored crevices,
 that you never knew existed,
 take up the task of unearthing sides to you
 that you are yet to run into.”

In “Coffee Mugs and Humid Surulere Mornings”, he fantasises about his lover and attempts a mental conjuring of her presence. He could have been more ingenious with his titling here, but there is a picturesque flow to the stanzas:

“I spend half the day with
  hands in my pockets
  because I do not want the world
  to see what thoughts of you do to me”

With each poem, Chiemeke meticulously and deliberately unpeels each layer of his yearning. He takes his pining to new dimensions when he likens the adoration of his new squeeze to religious rituals in “The Mass” and “A Yearning Man’s Prayer”; picture a devout Catholic priest kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, smitten by solemnity lost in liturgical adoration. In “11.52pm and  Pining”, the leaning of the clock towards midnight presents a canvas for the most vivid imaginations of this troubadour to play out.

“but I can say for sure
 that I know where my head craves to be
 under bulb-less rooms by 11.52pm”

With Doubt (the collection’s second segment), shiny toys rapidly lose their allure as Chiemeke’s emotions begin to oscillate. In the poem “Doubt, or Nothing Else”, he interrogrates the hollowness of his heart, which subsists despite the presence of a lover. Darkness has ensued for so long, maybe too long, and even when he is drowned in the sweetest kisses, he can’t shrug off the fear that the other shoe may soon drop, per usual:

“So forgive me when I get scared
 that things are so good, because
 rainbows suffer short life spans in the clouds
 and I just might have forgotten how
 to process the feelings that smiles are made of.”

In “Gasps For Air”, “I’m Used To This Place”, and “Tuned Out”, Jerry Chiemeke reflects on the turbulence that has become a friend of his. A lover’s touch is simply not enough to overcome the demons that have taken up rent-free spaces in the corners of his mind. He wants to be open to receive affection and to bask in this nascent romance, but he has become too familiar with self-sabotage, and on this occasion, he is fighting hard not to cave in.

Things take an exciting turn in Clarity, the book’s third segment. Here, Chiemeke manages to accept that he, too, is worthy of being loved, and the optimism reverberates through each poem in this section. Late-morning and early-evening yearnings are actualised in real-life encounters, the aftermath described with lush enthusiasm, the giddiness permeating each line. In “Come Home, I Miss You”, he writes: 

“These sheets hold
 fragrant memories of you
 that I am by no means eager
 to banish through silly washing powder”

In “This House” and “Room For Sweaty Noses”, Jerry becomes an architect, designing his projections of a future where the presence of his lover feels and tastes like a home for all seasons. The imagery deployed in this poem is earnest, propitious, almost innocent: few scenarios hint at easement and reassurance in a romantic relationship quite like a woman strutting around the house in her shorts.

But it’s not yet Uhuru for this wanderer. In Introspection (the collection’s fourth divider), Chiemeke argues that love can’t necessarily be seamless when obstacles still find their way into one’s life. In these poems, a trifecta of “Confessionals”, he goes off on a prosaic tirade, ruminating on past misadventures and subjecting himself to flagellations. He almost descends into self-indulgence as he quips about emotional unavailability, but compensates for it with his sense of wit and magnetic cynicism.

One thing identified in Jerry’s poems is the ability to play with the readers’ minds,  putting them on a cognitive hold, and allowing conflicting thoughts to trouble their minds. Definite (the book’s fifth segment, Jerry comes again to inform the readers that he’s back in love and knows the right way to love again. He muses on a feeling of fulfillment after sailing through unsettling tides of emotions. “In Safe Place, Slow Breathing”, he lauds his lover in a manner that suggests unalloyed devotion:

“but all I need
 before I close my eyes at 9:36pm,
 is your torso resting on mine.”

To Chiemeke, love comes with a huge touch of divinity. He describes this in “Melting Cupcake Blues”:

“Miracles do not
 come my way too often,
 and I still can’t figure
 how water becomes wine,
 but with you I have
 seen medicines turn to chocolate”

At the end, it is interesting to see Chiemeke hold on to love for dear life, traversing with such deft lyricism that you can’t help but root for him, and you almost believe that this journey ends happily. After the ups and downs, the back and forth, the conflict and resolution, Jerry Chiemeke falls to his knees in Curtains,  the last segment that sees everything tear apart at the seams. Unfortunately, there is no fairytale, romcom-esque ending for this lover-turned-fighter-turned-philosopher. He draws the reader to his regret in “Rainbows Are An Illusion.” In “Katampe (or 28 And Jaded)”, he makes a decision to forget, “wiping all the photos of you and videos of us from my phone…” an end to the poet’s voyage.

With this collection, Chiemeke tells a beautiful story of love, desire, heartbreak, and uncertainty with a tone bordering on the sardonic. Notes for Nnedimma is indeed a beautiful work of art that causes the heart to sit with the difficult questions posed by the concept of Love. The cover page proves to be tad deceptive too, as these poems are anything but “cheesy”; there’s a lot of depth to be unearthed here, even when our protagonist doesn’t get the joyful conclusion his journey deserves.