RESPONSE TO NAYMA CHAMCHOUN'S "COVID: THE WORDY WILDS OF A MIND UNDER LOCKDOWN"

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Exposition: So, I have this thing for “philosopher poets” in all their various styles and guises. What constitutes a philosopher poet in my mind? A depth of eye that spans life’s breadth, whose way with words fashion chain-linked mosaics of ideas that demand a second look and further thought to balance the individual and universal on a platinum scale. When I come across an artist who displays range, depth, breadth, excellence at every stage, that sure leaves me grinning as a tall, bald dear one might say.

I’ve run across a few such poets over the past 18 months, and I’m fortunately ecstatic or ecstatically fortunate to have crossed paths with Nayma Chamchoun’s work. I’m specifically pleased to have had the opportunity to read COVID: THE WORDY WILDS OF A MIND UNDER LOCKDOWN, Mica Press, 2022. If you’re in London, you can attend Morocco Bound Bookshop’s hosting of the official launch of Nayma’s debut poetry collection on Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 7pm London time.

My challenge: In response to the final product of many hours of creative energy expenditure, and of course the attendant minutiae that accompanies such a production, my task is to distill and yet to still expound upon the expansive ground laid down by an artist whose creations stimulate sensations whose naming would only belittle their immensity, trample and mash their intensity into symbols on a page. In this, and most instances, unforgivable. But is it avoidable? Let’s see.

But goodness gracious! Where to begin? I suppose cliché will help me find my way because I’d be hopelessly lost in the beguiling forest of Nayma Chamchoun’s words, images, metaphors, ideas sensations, juxtapositions and so much more otherwise. Oh, the cliché? Begin at the beginning of course.

Perhaps I had no choice but to be enchanted by Nayma’s work. I mean she ticked pretty much all my boxes. Relationships, rawthentic self-exploration through the prism of these relationships, navigating culture and social identity, aging, avenues of social commentary…and those merely the tilled soil of the garden of Nayma. The seeds are the words which she has watered with rhyme, wordplay, stark and subtle imagery, a torrent of emotion one could easily misidentify as drizzle.

COVID: THE WORDY WILDS OF A MIND UNDER LOCKDOWN houses writing so bold as to belie the very words of self-doubt the author has penned. Nayma roped me with her opening lariat, NO FILTER, an expository poem that tells you who the poet is, with no-holds-barred expression. She isn’t afraid to tell you that she isn’t a great big fan of social media in this piece.

“Twits twittering on Twitter.” Yes, alliteration and rhyme pepper this opening poem as it does much of the book. “Wearing my wrinkles as a sackcloth and ashes.” "Perfecting personas on FB,” begin the telling of Nayma’s rebelling against current tides. From the beginning she is dealing with social conditions as well as her discomforting place in this social reality.

Yeah, I’m a sucker for fearless social critique and self-examination all wrapped up in a bundle, tidy or otherwise.

MAMA’S WELCOME (p.4) foreshadows much of the relational theme that threads and treads through WORDY WILDS. I suppose I’m guilty of seeking me in others’ expressions and like my reading of Darrell Parry’s TWISTS, I was not disappointed. Nayma weaves family relationships, friendship, and culture into the fabric of MAMA’S WELCOME and writes words I wish I had:

My friend in my home.
Another part of me,
Friends have no secrets.

Among the number of relational pieces that slip past sense protection are GRADUATION (p.6), MOTHER AND SON (p.12), LI’L BIG MAN (p.17), FATHER (p.24), RECONCILIATION (p.40), SISTER (p.54), and the perfect ending to the book, CLOCKING OUT MUM (p.58). In these pieces you feel a mother’s pride, a mother’s loss, a daughter’s debilitation, and just the everyday universalities of familial relationships. 

As you would expect from the title, Nayma pens pieces that harken back to the title. The first of these appears on p.7 in PANIC, which depicts the early Covid mania that was evidenced in supermarkets. RESURFACING (p.48) touches on the apparent COVID aftermath, and one COVID offering that is too delicious to ignore is BREAKING (p.8), one of several pieces that I can call “favorites.” 

As head on as Nayma tackles myriad subjects, she allows for plenty of wondering, as she does in ODE TO A BICYCLE (p.14). As happens so frequently throughout the collection, multiple ideas and relationships intertwine and climb a trestle of words in this ode, and the last two lines left me wondering.

I contemplate that maybe
it is not the bike.

Is it not the bike that she really wanted, but a certain freedom that was beyond her grasp? That’s for you, the reader, to decide.

Nayma sprinkles pieces about aging throughout and although our body parts are different, I find similarity in our contemplation of decline. BREASTS (p.15), TIRED (p.21), MELANCHOLY (p.22) are all poems that echo the ache of aging that many might feel but aren’t likely to reveal except in poems, stories, perhaps memoirs. 

VENUS DE LA MENOPAUSA (p.53) is another gem on aging. No, Nayma Chamchoun does not console herself with pretense, but stands squarely in front of her mirror with eyes wide open and pen at the ready.

As much I would love to stay with personal poems that speak Nayma’s name, it is clear in her work that social identity and cultural commentary are integrally important to her as a poet and person. Pieces like THE UNMOORED MOOR (p.20), LIMBO (p.28), THE BAT AND THE BALL (p.27) and DILUTED (p.36) make this crystal. The first stanza of LIMBO, an epic poem in my book, gives you a hint of the soul-searing in this lament of longing:

Africa calling.
A convoy in the shadows.
Constant and ever-present.
A home but not a home.

And in DILUTED you start out thinking that the piece is another lament for lost culture until you careen into:

The little traditions and customs
we cling to, are nothing more
than taught belonging.
Ancestral peer pressure
For my identity to be yours
when all the things that make us
are as fleeting as we.

See what I mean by "philosopher poet? Nayma Chamchoun fits that bill quite snugly with all curves on display. 

Ok folks, I’ve probably said/written too much already and still I have to curtail my desire to keep voicing the virtues of Nayma Chamchoun’s COVID: THE WORDY WILDS OF A MIND UNDER LOCKDOWN. Maybe that tells you something and maybe it doesn’t. 

My bottom line is that this was an enjoyable read from multiple perspectives and the only trouble I had writing this response was the feeling that I couldn’t do Nayma’s work justice. Now I am just waiting for her novel to come out! I hope you enjoy Nayma Chamchoun’s COVID: THE WORDY WILDS OF A MIND UNDER LOCKDOWN as much as I did!