Zinko Hein, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Unsplash
Introduction
A'bena and I are on a 20-days translation challenge. We select random poems from anywhere in the world, translate them by default into the Igbo language, and into any of the more than four languages A'bena is familiar with.
For our first instalment, we pick Pamilerin Jacob's It Is Impossible to Live. It is a poem that mirrors a people's loss, struggle and collective grief.
I am writing this because a bullet didn't start its journey towards me. It did not start towards you. We are here because even if it started, it missed its way to you.
But a live bullet rarely ever misses.
On 20th of October, 2020, the Nigeria Armed Forces fired live bullets at peaceful protesters at Lekki Toll Gate. The protesters, who were largely youths, were protesting police brutality and the indiscriminate profiling and killing of young people by the Force. The police squad responsible for the disappearance alias killings was known as SARS, thus the #EndSARS trended across social media platforms.
I was thrice a victim of this profiling. Once before the protest, and twice after the protest. The last was at Palms Mall, Ibadan. It was my birthday, July 21st, 2021. I had gone out to get groceries. I was wearing a pair of Air Jordan, chinos trousers and a blue t-shirt. I wanted to get myself nice things for my birthday, but immediately I checked out, and as I was moving out of the mall, a man in police uniform pulled his AK-47 on me. I dropped everything on me & put my hands in the air. I didn't ask what my offence was. It was instinct acting. I was shaking.
He examined me well, hissed and blurted out “wrong person.” Without an apology, he left. I went home that day, and didn't stop vomiting. For weeks, I was sick, afraid of leaving the house. Dreaded every shopping mall around me. I wondered what story they'd have manufactured if that gun went out of safety and a bullet was lodged in me.
We've all read stories about this. So, when I encountered Pamilerin Jacob’s poem, It Is Impossible to Live, first published by Frontier Poetry, it reminded me of all my fears. I wept, again. This time I didn't vomit. We chose this poem as a reminder of the injustice still going on, all over the world, by State's apparatuses.
As for the process, after the selection, we wrote the poet for permission to use his work. Then, A’bena and I went through it, discussing Adele's River Lea and Sweetest Devotion, while figuring how to retain Jacob’s voice in the line breaks. The translation into French revealed itself to A'bena during our discussions, not a forethought.
Above all, we capitalised on the emotions the poem sparked in us. Such despair. But even as we call your attention to the event behind this poem, we also hope the hurt ends here.
— Akpa Arinzechukwu
Ọ dịghị Mfe Ịdịndụ by Pamilerin Jacob Ikekwe amara bụ ihe kwesịrị ekwesị dịrị naanị onye n’ahụ ọbara na-agba ibe ya. Mgbọ egbe furu ụzọ abụghị maka ebe ọ ma ụzọ ya, mana, akpọkwayarịị, ihe furu ụzọ: etu amara ji bụrụ ọrụ ihe amaghị ije ya. Aṅụrị… N'ezie, gịnị dị ka ọ bụ? N'ime ide abụ a, onye uwe ojii nwere ike idula m mmụọ maka uri dị m n'ahụ, maka akwa jean m, maka afọ one m dị, ma ruo ụlọ, jide nwa ya nwaanyị aka, na-emetụ ogologo imi ya, na-agwa ya maka ịhụ n'anya ya nwere ya: ana m ahụ nke a ka ajọ ihe. Mgbe Jimoh nwụrụ, eluigwe mara mma dị egwu. Ana m ahụ nke a ka ajọ ihe. Mgbe Ikechukwu nwụrụ, anyanwụ chasiri ike. Ana m ahụ nke a ka ajọ ihe. Kpachapụ m n'ihe niile gbasara mgbaghara ma ọ bụ amara. Ọ dị mfe i bu iwe n'obi, na-enweghị ighere, etu anyị si ebu unyi na ntị.
On Ne Peut Pas Vivre Pour ce que je sais, la grâce est réelle seulement pour celui qui regarde un autre saignement. La balle rate tout sauf la fin de son voyage est encore appelé un raté: dans la manière dont la grâce est définie dans le langage de la probabilité. La joie… qu’est-ce que c’est exactement? En écrivant ce poème, je pouvais être réduit au silence par la fureur d’un officier pour mes tatouages, pour ma veste en jean, pour mon âge & rentrer à la maison, il porte sa petite fille, son index tordu - caresse son nez et il murmure je t’aime La cruauté! je considère cette cruauté. Quand Jimoh est mort, le ciel était parfait. je considère cette cruauté. Quand Ikechukwu est mort, le soleil ne scintille pas. Je considère cette cruauté Éloigne-moi du pardon ou de la grâce Il est possible de vivre avec la colère sans honte, comme nous le faisons avec la saleté dans nos oreilles.
It Is Impossible to Live
Perhaps grace is a tangible thing
only to the one who watches another bleed.
The bullet misses
everything
but its destination,
yet, is called
a stray: how grace is a function of probability.
Joy… What, exactly
is that?
Mid-writing this poem, I could be stilled
by an officer’s fury for my tattoos, for my
denim jacket, for my age
& getting home, holding his
little daughter, he—with his crooked
index—would graze her nose and whisper I love you:
I consider this cruelty.
When Jimoh died, the sky was perfect. I consider
this cruelty. When Ikechukwu died, the sun did not flicker.
I consider this cruelty.
Keep me away from forgiveness or grace.
It is possible to live with anger
unashamedly, the way we do with dirt
in our ears.
A’bena Awuku-Larbi is a polylingual poet, a legal practitioner, and a womanist. Her poems have appeared in the Contemporary Ghanaian Writers’ Series and The Big Yellow Post. She is an alumnus of the Mo Issa Workshop 2021 and co-founder of Happy Monthlies Ghana. Her professional background includes work on energy management, literary artistic activism campaigns with ActionAid, menstrual hygiene management with Happy Monthlies Ghana and gender-based violence awareness with Young Urban Women’s Movement Ghana. She writes about women and for women at The Second Woman.
Pamilerin Jacob is a Nigerian poet & editor whose poems have appeared in Barren Magazine, Agbowó, Poetry Potion, Ghost City Press, Feed Lit Mag, Neologism, IceFloe Press & elsewhere. He was the second runner-up for Sevhage Poetry Prize 2019, co-winner PIN Food Poetry Contest 2018. A Best of the Net nominee, his poems also appear in Memento: An Anthology of Contemporary Nigerian Poets, 2020. He was a mentor in the SprinNG Fellowship 2018, 2019, & 2020. Author of the chapbook, Gospels of Depression, & Curator of PoetryColumn-NND, a poetry column in Nigerian NewsDirect, a national newspaper; reach him on Twitter @pamilerinjacob.