The Gathering of the Bastards triumphs not only in the brilliant chronological arrangement of the poems but also in the emotional resonance of each poem, solidified by concrete experiences suggestively born from factual encounters. Oriogun is a close observer of the world he inhabits. This is evident in the rich testaments of witnessing he captures in vivid snapshots—from the herd of red Fulani cows led down the winding road by a little boy’s whistle to the fishermen on boats offering prayers to their faded nets. Such vivid narration is only possible from someone who has devoted himself to mindfulness, painstakingly paying attention on purpose. 

In her collection of essays, Upstream, American poet, Mary Oliver, speaks on mindfulness as an attention to the intricacies of the natural world often overlooked. Oriogun shares this philosophy. Like Oliver, he understands that ‘attention is the beginning of devotion.’ Another American poet, Jane Hirshfield, resonating with Oliver’s declaration in her book, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry, wrote: ‘In the wholeheartedness of concentration, world and self begin to cohere.’ This is the pulse and driving life force of Oriogun’s collection. 

To probe this philosophy, Oriogun’s persistent admiration for the sea and its volumes of history, immortal in the memory of water, returns him to the borders of the Atlantic reflecting on the age-long tale of the tran-Atlantic slave trade. Oriogun writes in ‘Migrant by the Sea’: ‘The sea knows the names of all it has swallowed, time knows the names of all that have been forgotten.’ Oriogun collaborates and sympathizes with his speakers through witnessing, which is evident in the poem, ‘On Belonging’: ‘lineage of those / who were slaves, whose hands dug the gold / that followed the pilgrimage of Mansa Musa.’. Another poem, ‘The Sea Dreams of Us’, expands on this: 

Before the sea became my journey, it was love,  

folktales, it was our origin staring at us,  

it was our shadows, then the ships of migration  

came, reminding us that years back, people left  

in canoes loaded with hope, with spices, seafarers  

who navigated water, holding stars in their bosoms  

until the sky became road. 

In a time of uprising, of involuntary migration, and conflict-induced displacement across the world, The Gathering of Bastards presents a school of polemic philosophy that refuses to succumb to the precarity of losing one’s homeland or the harshness of global capitalist greed. Oriogun has written an urgent and immersive book that empowers readers to interrogate, challenge, and liberate themselves from society’s rigid dogma or opposition. He calls on us to rage against injustice, stereotypes, ‘isms’, and limiting borders; to be fearless in the face of tyranny and to join a gathering of bastards, united as one unapologetic and untamable voice! I look forward to his next collection, The Mystic of Small Dreams, a continued installment in Oriogun’s chronicles on borders, set for publication later this year⎈