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Shadows
(2011)
Shadows, as the title insinuates, splits open and lays bare the frightening vision of humanity, the heart of man depressed, a veritable inferno in which there is little to be enjoyed and everything to be endured, as all is vanity, a gnawing emptiness. Nothing is but what it seems. Simple but without being simplistic, there is in the damp climate of Doh's poetry broken promises, displaced emotional centres, a pervading sense of doom, of impending disaster, and a total helplessness reminiscent of Plato's proverbial mythical cave in which all reality is but shadow, devoid of substance, with the observer chained to the walls of his feelings, beliefs, and unfulfilled ambitions. The second section, Celebration, is, however, a source of warmth, of light, the sun's rays in an otherwise damp and and dark collection.
Characteristically, Africans in any Western country are asked so many different questions about 'Africa,' as Westerners love to refer to the many countries that make up that huge continent, as if Africa were a single nation state. So one begins wondering why it is that Africans, on the other hand, do not refer to individual European countries as 'Europe' simply, then the trends and consequences of stereotyping begin setting in just as one is getting used to being asked if Africa has a president, or if one can say something in African. It is some of these questions that Emmanuel Fru Doh has collected over the years and has attempted answering them in an effort to shed some light on a continent that is in many ways like the rest of the world, when not better, but which so many love to paint as dark, backward, chaotic, and pathetic.