Felix Bongjoh

Light as poetically and realistically captured in its natural form from the sun, and as produced by man through electrical devices, has an impact on how individuals in society, as compared with groups, interact with each other and use it for their daily lives. Beyond light as physically manifested in transparent, plasmatic ions, there is light, an inspiration from within, that leads an individual or groups of individuals, each in their own isles of light, to plough through life's intricacies and savor its pleasures, while avoiding life's dark side. Virtually all the poems in this book deal with ordinary sceneries and experiences, each of which may be interpreted in the context of imagery extensively used from one poem to another. Whether in the office, at home behind the mountains and woods, in times of peace and war, in dreams and in expressive moods of joy and gloom, love and hate, life tends to permeate individuals and groups alike in their interactions with each other. Most of the poems have been crafted within this broad framework of light.

While much has been said about stars, this book of poetry considers those beaming on a garden through a moon-lit night to be the ultimate harbor, where solutions to ubiquitous problems encountered during the day may be sorted out. Appreciating the beauty of a quiet star-lit night may also hatch questions about and clues to solutions to everyday nagging enigmas, sources of agony, temptations and jubilation over overcome predicaments and sudden dead-ends. Rays from the sun, from street lights, from the moon, from stars, and, above all from the mind tend to connect in symbioses that hatch genuine expression combined with an effusion of feelings to project commonplace patterns and themes that harness various facets of life. Stars in their generic sense, as interpreted herein, have given rise to the title of a book covering life and death, war and peace, love, anger, the ugly and the beautiful, etc., the significance of life as characterized by not only by joy, but also issues we have to deal with, drawing inspiration from various symbolic sources of hope, including the stars.

Using Eris - the largest of the dwarf planets beyond Neptune - as a symbol of finality or goal, the ultimate, a lucid possibility, a brilliant clue, a way out of anything, and from a metaphysical perspective, what happens beyond imagination and what transcends life on earth, the poet explores ordinary facts of rural and urban life, encompassing the multiple themes of cultural and personal inter-relational values, including love, compassion, war, solitude, man's interaction with nature, etc. Accordingly, the poet draws his imagery from various down-to-earth experiences and universally familiar scenery to drive home specific ideas. For the most part, the local color consists of commonplace geographical sceneries and characters with recognizable traits with which the reader is able to associate.

The poems in Beyond Dying Ripples cover a kaleidoscope of themes. Most of them are implicitly or explicitly intended to make the reader see what is hidden behind ripples, especially on a river, where they expand for a while and disappear. The poems in general oscillate around diverse circumstances in life, nature, man's condition in times of war; and facts of life, including love, happiness, beauty, melancholy and death.

Most of the poems reflect a diverse number of themes, a plethora of waves, as suggested by its title. The themes encompass, but are not limited to pain, love, grief, beauty, nature, man's ordinary and extraordinary experiences, while others project man's interaction with man and nature.

Having been pushed to a cliff, where thousands have fatally fallen under the bullets of BIR soldiers in particular, having been trapped in a genocide calculated to wipe them off like "rats" in the words of a dictator, a subjugated people get back on their feet, determined, more than ever, not to yield to the servitude imposed by a neighboring country of equal status. Against the backdrop of agony over departed loved ones who have fought a good fight of resistance and those who must continue to do so for posterity, some of the poems also muse about familiar human struggles and other aspects of human nature and life in general. Consistent with the author's previous books of poetry, Felix Bongjoh in Angle of Angels has tried to pay attention to both form and substance, always giving preference across his poems to criteria of literary merit, including metaphor and symmetry. The poems, most of which are written in free verse, are both accessible and absorbing.

Most of the poems herein dwell on light and shade, on gleam and gloom, but are also, in general, inspirational, reflecting life in a hilly countryside, its main local color. The first part of book reflects life around the Lake Nyos area just before and after the Lake Nyos explosion in August 1986. One of the main themes running through most of the poems is that which infers the light and love which ultimately grow from gloom. Gloom's Sprout of Love, Felix Bongjoh's eighth book of poetry take up themes of passion and compassion he has also traditionally treated in his earlier seven works, namely: (i)Chorus on a Bridge; (ii) Broken Gloss of Bliss; (iii) Nightfall at Dawn; (iv)When Dusk Hoots; (v) Weeds of Jewelry; (vi) Season of Flowers; and (vii) The Ineluctable Spin.

Season of Flowers is the sixth book of poetry by the author, Felix Bongjoh. His five previous poetry collections are: (i ) Chorus on A Bridge; (ii) Broken Gloss of Bliss; (iii) When Dusk Hoots; (iv) Weeds of Jewelry; and (v) Nightfall at Dawn. His seventh book of poetry, The Ineluctable Spin will soon be published. In his sixth book, Season of Flowers, Bongjoh continues to focus on various aspects of the human experience across diverse circumstances, including from hypothetical reality. Interweaving art with style against a rich background of local color with flora and fauna often speaking for themselves, and through his own prism of human judgment and attitude, the poet makes ubiquitous use of flowers, especially in a metaphorical sense. His dramatic interplay of symbolism and wit enables him to invariably communicate gloomy and not-so-bright events and feelings in a positive, if not, optimistic light. His poems in this collection mirror life through a spectrum of social and psychological constructs, landmarks and ordinary incidents of a certain significance. In a lyricism reflective of the poets typical manner of expression, prototypical ideas are subtly but effectively communicated - quite often with a much needed sense of humor.