Exploring the Depths of Adedayo Agarau's The Years of Blood A Review by B James

Book Review: The Years of Blood, Copyrighted, Adedayo Agarau, Published by Poetic Justice Institute,(2025), Pages: 96 (e-Book available to download.)

https://fordhampress.com/the-years-of-blood-pb-9781531511616.html

Reviewed by Bridgette James

Topic: The victimology of Dead Nigerians

The dead appear in various forms: Cadavers of children, the unidentified dead, victims of rituals, dismembered bodies, the ordinary dead, ?? war victims, missing – dead people and ghosts.

The following poems are crucial to the anthology's premise that a sinister motive is behind the death of these Nigerians:

1. Salt water

2. Litany in which my father returns home safely at night

3. Wind

4. These days of varnishing

From the opening pages, the dead in Adedayo Agarau’s: The Years of Blood, are presented as victims. They are victims of a ritual murder, or they have come to harm through the actions of another person. Even when they're missing, we presume harm has befallen them.

The word ‘search’ comes up more than 14 times. So why are these people missing?

Their spirits are definitely distressed too.

The cause of death is a societal problem. There is a sense that the collective – everyone - is involved in the actions that have caused these people‘s untimely death. If there's a language of silence, then our apathy is fostering a growth of the problem.

Do you believe in these ritual practices? Do you think they bring good luck? Are ghosts mediums? Do you believe you have a spirit?

When there is a belief that ritual practices work, do you see why the practice is so prevalent?

The continuity of the practice is influenced by people's beliefs that sacrified/mutilated bodies offer, some sort of good luck.

The poet is lucky that he is not missing, although sometimes he becomes a voice for these victims, so they're no longer a statistic.

Heading #1: Your First Impressions

About the Poet

The Victims -

The dead were just ordinary people, aren't they? What about the girl that we meet in Wind? She could've been anyone's daughter. Those children in Boys who never die (after Safia Elhillo) are your average Nigerian kids. This is deliberate as the poet humanises victims of rituals. Are the dead being disappeared by other people? There's a sinister motive running throughout this collection The Years of Blood. We almost feel like some men are the antagonists. They perpetuate crimes against ordinary Nigerians. We almost feel as if the dead were helpless.

Let's go back to Wind, the opening poem. Pestle and mortar. Did you use a pestle and mortar, growing up in West Africa, do you? So, are these the utensils then, that are used to ground bodies? Everyday utensils like mortars and pestles become sinister tools. Women pounding yam, in the corridor could be pounding a child. Body parts. Who knows what's in what? These days of varnishing do you know what's in what? What's happening with these people? The fathers who go out say, the drainage smells of bones.

When people just vanish, are you becoming increasingly suspicious of your countrymen?

You see how the collective is being drawn into The years of blood? Am I a victim. Or am I a culprit? Are you a culprit or are you a victim?

Heading #2: How Have You Tested

Central to this collection are Yoruba Mythological beliefs about the dead.

What significance does death hold? Some of the lines in the poems are in Yoruba  - there’re Yoruba parables too. Therefore this collection of poems has added to the poet’s culture. Are goats used as a motif?

In ‘Advance Directive in End of Life Decision-Making among the Yoruba of South-Western Nigeria,’ (2016), Ayodele Samuel Jegede and Olufunke Olufunsho Adegoke have argued that in Yoruba culture, death is socially constructed having spiritual, physical and social significance. Yorubas do not see death as the end of life. It is believed that there is transformation from one form of existence to another. The belief in an afterlife which is a continuation of this life, only in a different setting. Participation in this afterlife is conditional on the nature of one’s life and the nature of one’s death.

Heading #3: Pros and Cons

What does night signify in the collection? It's not just a time of day. Does it also have some kind of ominous meaning? I do get a feeling of doom and gloom. And that sums up the anthology.

Featured Poet

Dreaming -

What does that connote? When you dream, what state are you in? In REM sleep - the subconscious, state. What happens? Do you feel almost as if you have no control over what your body does?

Why is the poet dreaming of a landscape of bones? Where is he having these nightmares? Is Nigeria a landscape of bones?

And all throughout years of blood, you go to sleep at night, only to wake up and realise something bad has happened.

Familial relationships –

What's the relationship between these apathetical dads and these distressed mums? In the poem I'm going to read, we're going to see how Adedayo’s dad returns home safely at night to a very panicked mother.

Boys are also victims, aren't they? They're carefree, they're playful. What happens to them when they become men or husbands? When they grow up, when they become men, the poet presents them sometimes as antagonists. So, are, these the men who responsible for people's disappearance, for their untimely death, for dismembered bodies?

How about daughters? What did you make of the relationship between girls and boys in this anthology?

Heading #4: The Final Score

Style-

I found that Adedayo plays with form and additionally, that his poems do not follow a traditional layout. Certain words are repeated e.g. search, dream, cobwebs and hue. When a poet repeats words or expressions, they’re asking me as a reader to pay attention to them. Repetition is used as a literary device; so are antonyms. The poet creates his rules around punctuation too. Th euse of Yoruba enhances the richness of the poems.

To take part in a discussion about the anthology, please join on Facebook & X (formerly Twitter, for LIVE shows in October, 2025.

References

1. Agarau, A. (2025) The Years of Blood, published by Poetic Justice Institute.

2. Jegede, A. S. and Adegoke O.O. in 'Advance Directive in End of Life Decision-Making among the Yoruba of South-Western Nigeria,’ (2016), published by the National Library of Medicine [Online] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5363404/

   accessed, September, 2025.