My Poetry Corner July 2024 features the poem “Nevertheless” from the debut poetry collection Tender Headed (USA, 2023) by Olatunde Osinaike, a poet, essayist, and software developer. The following excerpts of poems are all sourced from this collection, winner of the 2022 National Poetry Series.

Osinaike earned his BS in Engineering from Vanderbilt University (Tennessee) and his MS in Information Systems from Johns Hopkins University (Maryland). Originally from the West Side of Chicago (Illinois), he currently lives with his wife in Atlanta, the capital of Georgia.

How did a data scientist for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton also become a poet? In an October 2023 interview for his alma mater, Vanderbilt University, Osinaike said: “I don’t think of the data science and the writing as different. You definitely use a lot of creativity in how you code. The best observations I ever got were in a technology forecasting class with Andy Van Schaack [associate professor of the practice of engineering management] my junior year at Vanderbilt. We talked about scenario analysis, convergent opinions. So, even if I’m looking at something under a microscope, I’m also thinking about the world around what I’m observing.”

In his debut collection, Osinaike questions what makes a man and, more specifically, the Black man like himself. His introductory 28-line, block form poem, “Men Like Me,” frames the collection with its list of the diverse ways in which Black men present themselves to the world (p. 11):

Boys.          Will be boys. Manly. Slick. Elbow grease. Baritones. Singing low. Unruly. Higher than a hierarchy. Inherit. Plausible deniability. Disorder. Bachelors and awful apostles. Dark  knights…. Treat all we touch like tungsten. Can’t temper anything. Love a melting pot. Get physical. Have a problem with the word no. Yes men. Have more than just a problem with the word no. Antsy with violence…. Men of the house. Our own men. Might not start it, but will end it. Love when we aren’t followed or replaced. Love having the last word so we take it wherever we go. Front lines. Confessional booths. Prenups. Shotgun weddings. Law & Order reruns. Boardrooms. Proms. Distilleries. Salary negotiations. Horror films. Oval offices. On air.

In “Twelve,” his longest prose poem, divided into six segments (pp. 47-52), Osinaike, raised a Christian, explores what it means to stand before God as a man born with two blades in my back / a fist of intent as many arteries as there are hours in a day / and less than half the cynicism it takes for a white man to pray […] Who’s to say this world has a long memory and forgets anyway / several times I’ve been several feet from men who look like me with hands / dapping up like mine would on the same dim-lit corners I have been / stopped on  I’ve walked miles in shoes a cop might think were theirs […] I can attest that men learn to play men from / men still learning  lord forgive me for the times I / have said give me a sign when I meant let the dark / of my eyes see light the way a harbor can […] god as my witness I’d take anything resembling the warmth of forgiveness…

The featured five-stanza, prose poem, “Nevertheless,” is one of hope in the face of adversity (pp. 58-59). The poet also mentions forgiveness in the first verse. In this case, he refers to forgiveness of self. Forgiveness for his own existence?

I want to take this time to focus on the timeless, as certain ones take up arms to remove the lifetime of those like me. My favorite word above: a dove that sounds like I forgive myself, like a red redacted, like a gospel according to the camaraderie I can make cousins out of.

The poet refers to “nevertheless” as his favorite word. Despite certain ones seeking the removal of Blacks from the body politic, he continues to exist by the grace of God. The religious connotation is reinforced in the second verse:

There is no new ecclesiastical under the sun. No shortage of my people sporting basketball shorts beneath true religion jeans. We reincarnate every morning in these precincts with the good news delivered more than once already. The protests of messengers sent down, the blaze

No matter the protestations of certain ones, Black athletes are celebrated across several sports in the USA and worldwide. Their achievements and success and those of other Blacks matter. But it’s not enough, as expanded in the third verse:

after the crossfire, a chosen people who are either a jaywalk away from the love of our lives or our lives left to love. I have found that the self can be its own exodus, be a black sitcom or an intercessor for the one who waits but never goes. When I say my favorite word,

“The self can be its own exodus,” the poet writes. Whatever oppression we may face, the power to free ourselves lies within us. We hold the power, too, to uplift those who are too broken to save themselves. Even so, there’s more to consider as the poet relates in the fourth verse:

I think of how often our joy can become a win-win, how the pores of a mother can cup holy water. Some say the world is still becoming, but no, our angels trumpet our timbre. They are in the streets where peace is sold separately and critique is still, policed. They stay in the cut

Who are these angels protesting in the streets? So often, they are our sisters, wives, mothers, and grandmothers. Strong women who know how to “cup holy water.” He concludes in the final verse:

and on exhibit, like a glass-stained window meant to color the light. Know we have everything in common. Nobody move. I need to capture this moment where we are one with the unease that stomachs us like a morning rush. How we might fill in the blank with our story, our chalices next to paper plates, our fried and our black-eyed, our dressing, our Lawry’s, our fridge tetris, and most of all, most of all, our seconds.

Their lives may be on the line in public spaces, nevertheless all is not bleak or lost. They share common ground within their communities of fellowship. The simple joy of sharing a tasty meal with extended family and friends should be celebrated. Better yet, when no one goes hungry and there are seconds for all. I see the poet’s face light up with joy.

To read the complete featured poem and learn more about the Nigerian American Poet Olatunde Osinaike, go to my Poetry Corner July 2024.