How to Wake a Butterfly, Loic Ekinga: Poetry Review

“You’re a deeply sensitive man”

I took those words and crushed them

Inside my palm until they turned

Red like wine, I don’t want to cry.

She looked at me again and called me

River.

Loic Ekinga, How to Wake a Butterfly

***

This assemblage of poems by Loic is in four parts; Growing up as a boy and detachment from his parents, Mental health struggles and grief as a man, Denial, healing and acceptance, Love and finally thriving.

Under the first part; Growing up, he narrates the detachment that occurred in his family when his mother leaves to study and the silence of his father that became a language that he resonated with growing up but, he is trying to unlearn over the years.

My father taught me to be a wielder of silence

A master of body language

He taught me that questions don’t always guarantee answers

That sometimes, if you’re silent enough

The answer will come knocking.

All responses and questions he sought as a child were responded to with silence and so, finding his voice has been a pursuit that the protagonist in the book is learning to embrace and find. His vulnerability and acceptance of his weaknesses was profoundly brought out in the designated poems under this section. Growing up in Congo, he narrates the games his friends and himself used to play, informed by the violence and the constant deaths that surrounded them. This clearly depicted the role that environment has to play in the upbringing of a child.

The second part concerning Mental health struggles and grief as a man, the central character narrates the divorce of his parents and the effect it had on him and his siblings, loss of his grandmother and the struggles to accept her death and the molestation he underwent as a growing adult; his acceptance of the same. In his poem; My father: a lesson in mourning like a man, he continuously questions why his father never cried or wept at the loss of his friend but insisted on covering up his tears behind black shades and act macho while every feature in his body depicted his grief.

I asked myself,

Why aren’t you crying?

Why are you hiding?

Should I not cry too?

This pointed out the societal expectations that African culture especially has placed on boys to act macho in all circumstances regardless of their emotions and feelings. Crying and vulnerability is seen as a sign of weakness on the part of the boys and so, they have to internally deal with all these pressures and also be the same ones to hold the forte at the end of the day. This expectation has caused a lot of masculine depression and mental health issues that are springing up more rampantly and there is definitely need to have a change in the narrative in the way boys are raised as well as the gentleness with which both genders are considered.

Additionally, concerning mental health, and the third part of the anthology about denial, healing and acceptance, the protagonist narrates the ordeal of his molestation by an elderly woman under the poems; Likasi; which ultimately negatively affected his relationships and the desire for older women. The denial he had in the initial stages in due course affected his healing and there was so much freedom in relaying his ordeal and letting it go once he accepted and recognized what was happening to him.

It’s extremely wrong to be molested

And claim to be the man in charge

A lucky, lucky boy

Likasi… because I’m trying to get over it

The beauty about healing is that it gets easier once we accept and work towards deliberately relieving ourselves of the guilt, shame and ache we felt during whatever struggle and the author stunningly expresses this vulnerability, total healing and release. He talks about healing and the need to be understood, affirmed and hugged above all. There’s always relief that comes with hugs. I for one, are such a hugger so I definitely resonate with the authors anecdote for his healing and ache.

The last part is about love and moving on. The protagonist finds love and narrates this in his last poems. The beauty of the one he loves, how they met, and how the butterfly was finally awoken, with gentleness, love and light.

It is beautiful that his story has a happy ending.

Amidst the uncertainty and confusion, the fear of acceptance and the worry that he might never fit in with what society termed as his sensitivity, he finally finds his voice, his passion, embraces his sensitivity and is learning, just like a butterfly, to spread his wings each day and fly.

You definitely have to get a copy of this book from amazon!

It’s a remarkable anthology.

***

Loic Ekinga Kalonji is a Congolese poet, story teller, and a screenwriting enthusiast. His work in poetry and fiction focuses on the human experience and memories.

Follow him on twitter Loic Ekinga @1stLoicYouknow      

                                Instagram @Loic Ekinga

Cheers.