We must move on. But an artist doesn’t move on so easily from atrocious memory.
Carl Terver
Praxis Magazine Chapbook Series has published Carl Terver’s first poetry chapbook, For Girl at Rubicon.
Carl Terver is a Nigerian writer, poet and critic. He is the Assistant Digital Editor at Praxis magazine. He writes from Makurdi.
Download For Girl at Rubicon on Praxis Magazine
Here is an excerpt from the author’s preface to the book:
“The last words in this chapbook are “Within / your heart disintegrates with Funmi Adams’ My Beloved Country,” in the poem To Admire Blood Murals. The full title of the song mentioned is “Nigeria My Beloved Country.” It was a popular song of patriotism: if you grew up in the 90s, you heard it a lot. The rendition is on a laid-back, fluted reggae beats that was popular then. Five minutes long, it has an interlude of pure and intoxicating sax that comes after two verses—and its reggae is piped up a little higher. A careless slave to this part of the song, I often return to it to reclaim a certain loss of my childhood Nigeria I believed was good.
But for this to be complete, I open up the rhythm of those few seconds of sax and enter into it. This way, I am insulated from the annihilation of my sanity by the fears I pen in To Admire Blood Murals, for example, which destroys my faith for country. Yet, when we return to memory to find cure, we depart from it still, as we try to forget the pain and memory of now. The cure now is to forget quickly this pain—the memory of death, living in this country. We must move on. But an artist doesn’t move on so easily from atrocious memory. “
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