Mark Nwagwu’s Curved Fortunes as a Manifesto of Creative Resistance

Yinka Olatunbosun

Curved Fortunes is a collection of poems that explore the author’s metaphorical evaluation of social issues. Immersed in philosophical thoughts, the poet, Mark Nwagwu addresses topics related to destiny, love, loss, history and nationhood.

The author’s rich poetic tone spreads across the 110-page poetry collection, which features 89 poems, emphasising the author’s recurring fascination with fate and life through animate and inanimate objects.

Curved Fortunes is a reinforcement of Mark Nwagwu’s curiosity about life and the elevation of poetry as a language of introspective expressions: “dedicated to Christopher Nonyelum Okeke, a diplomat, for his support of the arts and his publication of “Contemporary Art: Multidimensionality in Nigerian Art” whose images and pages inspired much of (my poems) – poems” in the collection.

In Curved Fortunes, Mark Nwagwu does not offer us a book of poems; he offers a metaphysical storm clothed in lyricism—a love letter to life and loss, an elegy to a nation, a canvas of cosmic questions and, above all, a long, unflinching stare into the soul of being. In the words of Kolade Olanrewaju Freedom, Poet and author of Punctured Silence, “Curved Fortunes is a poet’s genuine interrogation of existence across the minute and profound, via lush lyricism.

The cradle of this collection is no ordinary one. The book opens with the declaration, “I Was Born an Artist,” a sacred invocation, a declaration, a prophecy, wrapped in ancestral fabric. At its most accessible level, this poem is a maternal soliloquy; part prayer, part prophecy, delivered by a speaker on the brink of bringing life into the world. But this is no ordinary baby, not an ordinary mother. The opening lines are terse, raw, and resolute:
“I will live…
this pregnancy will not kill me
this child will live to be born”

Embedded in these lines, is a storm, a defiance against mortality and misfortune. The poet immediately sets the stakes high; that birth is not a given; but a battle. And not just for survival, but for destiny. The poem wrestles with the terrifying possibility that this child, so full of potential, might disappear into the vast sea of life without recognition.

What animates the collection most vividly is love, not the kind that compels its host to offer gentle kisses on golden evenings, but a possession that culminates in reckless surrender. In “Write me a poem,” the poet says in a tone one might mistake for command, until one realises it is actually capitulation. Love here is not mere romance. It is longing ritualised, memory deified. In “You Have Captured Me,” love is a force that seizes the artist, renders him restless: “…possesses me, enters my heart / flows in my veins, traverses my being…” This is not just a sentimental expression, but spiritual devotion, intense as prophecy and tender as a whisper from beyond the veil. Nwagwu’s women, Anyanwu, Miraimisa, and Ojiego are not just muses. They are deities, dancers, revolutionaries, and memory-keepers. In “Her Memory,” he writes, “her memory marvels, serenades streaming skies,” giving us a vision of remembrance that is not passive, but active, majestic, and luminous. These poems do not simply remember; they resurrect.

Then there is the gnawing tug of existence, the poet’s constant interrogation of being and the spaces between. What is art, what is self, what is the meaning of living in a world where “rainbows are still seeking elections” and the very air may vanish? In one breath, we are with shepherds in Eden; in another, we are duelling faceless ideologies.

On “Boxing Day,” a day reimagined not for sport, but for existential battle, he says: “how do I know my enemy / if I cannot enter his mind / and flush out its insidious infidels?” That is the genius of Nwagwu’s poetry. It poses ancient questions in contemporary idioms, merging Biblical cadence with post-colonial critique, philosophical musing with lyrical fury. In “My Fear the Air I Breathe Might Disappear,” we find a man not afraid to speak of despair and indict the systems that manufacture it. His poetic voice moves from the ethereal to the earthly with unsettling ease. One moment he is contemplating eternity, and the next he is calling out the rot in Nigeria’s corridors of power, spitting righteous fire on “public servants” whose hands are slick with stolen futures.

The philosophical strand that weaves through Curved Fortunes is both introspective and societal. Nwagwu is not merely pondering the nature of being; he is interrogating the architecture of fate itself. Can destiny be rerouted? Are we all fish fated for Nineveh, no matter how hard we swim against the tide? His poems ask these not as abstractions, but as lived experiences, especially for the Nigerian child, the African artist, the ageing philosopher who sees with unbearable clarity.

When he muses, “Where Does Art Find Rest?” he isn’t asking a rhetorical question. Instead, he is pleading, almost for a refuge, a sanctum where truth and form might meet and be enough. In his world, art is not merely a divine encounter, but also a dangerous calling.

And yet, for all its celestial preoccupations, the book is rooted deeply in our nation’s soil. Nwagwu’s patriotism is not the glossy, performative variety. Rather, it is gritty, painful, and honest. Nigeria is not romanticised; it is mourned. In “They Must Pay,” the poet unleashes his scathing critique:
“…you can inherit diamonds stolen in the colonial days / of The Congo… / but in Nigeria, there are two simpler ways…”
This is not just poetry; it is witness. The metaphor here is molten. It burns with the anger of one who has seen the promise of post-independence turned into a carcass, whose children must now inherit sand instead of gold. Yet even here, there is no full capitulation to despair. Nwagwu still finds ways to believe in a future Nigeria, perhaps out of stubborn hope or sheer poetic defiance.

Finally, Curved Fortunes is not an easy collection. It resists quick consumption, preferring instead to haunt, to linger in the corners of thought, long after its last line. It is both a memoir of a life fully lived and a manifesto of creative resistance.

Mark Nwagwu, is a multi-talented professor of cell and molecular biology, who turned 88yrs on May 17, 2025. Inspired by his granddaughter’s love for reading, he veered into creative writing in retirement. A notable scientist and prolific writer, he has 12 books to his credit. Of these books, four poetry collections were dedicated to his dear wife, professor Helen Onyemazuwa Nwagwu of blessed memory titled – Helen not of Troy (2008), Cat Man Dew (2010), Helena Venus (2013) and Time Came Upon Me (2019). Additionally, he published the following poetry collections – Write Me A Poem (2020) -in three volumes – Dreams Dance: My Journey Through Life (2022).

Preceding his mentioned works of poetry, are the following novels written by him– Forever Chimes (2008), a promise to his granddaughter for inspiring his literary writings, My Eyes Dance (2010) and I Am Kagara (2016). The author is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science, and a Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA).