Sọ̀rọ̀sókè: An #EndSARS Anthology, a flawed collection of poetry edited by Jumoke Verissimo and James Yékú, begs the following questions: Are we supposed to stop putting ‘poetry’ anthologies together on the spur of remarkable moments? Are we supposed to give up using anthologies to mark remarkable events and people?
#EndSARS—the series of youth-led, youth-fuelled protests that took place in various parts of Nigeria in October 2020—remains, in its own way, poignant. It was a moment that almost ripped a string off the guitar of ‘Nigeria-as-we-know-it’ (or so we thought); but one that, like an unripe orange on the tongue, has also left a bitter aftertaste in our collective memory. The event, and much that surrounds it, constitutes the bread and wine of Sọ̀rọ̀sókè: An #EndSARS Anthology (Noirledge, 2022), edited by poet and novelist, Jumoke Verissimo and James Yékú, a scholar whose work centres cultural studies and the social media.
In their introduction, the editors write:
[T]he poems we write are a mode of speaking the truth to power, emphasizing that Nigerian lives matter, that the young Nigerian should be allowed to dream. . . [These poems curated in real-time] speak to the urgency of present lived experiences and the everyday moments of the real. These will speak in their intensities, reinventing inchoate metaphors.
The introduction offers a bland summary of the period and its atmosphere...
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