Title: War Ulcers
Author: Yowasi Omadang
Price: Shs20,000
Availability: All Leading Bookshops
Pages: 86
Published: 2024
War Ulcers by Omadang Yowasi is an interesting poetry collection. It bursts out of the literary blocks with its title, employing ‘ulcers’ as a metaphor for woes or troubles. This metaphor was first used to describe Napoleon Bonaparte’s Iberian campaign of 1808-1814 by Napoleon himself. He called it his Spanish Ulcer because the conflict turned out to be the start of his end, draining French resources and beginning the chain of events which culminated in his very literal Waterloo.
Omadang, who is a police constable in Uganda’s police force, seems to be part of a new breed of police officers who place a premium on the power of words. Retired Assistant Inspector General of the Police (AIGP) Fred Yiga says in the book’s Foreword that such police officers must contend with the rigors of policing on top of intellectual pursuits.
This, as he shows, is no mean feat. He however encourages the effort precisely because it is difficult and also poses a question to the author. “One question for PC Omadang Yowasi: are you introducing a very important dynamic in policing?
It is a dynamic that reminds police officers that they join the Force with young and “unused/unexploited” brains and cannot afford to keep these brains idle? Thank you for making us aware that if we used every free time at work to sharpen our brains, especially in logic development, policing would be a better occupation than it is today. Knowledge is power although the opposite is not necessarily true.
Watch out!” says Yiga. Exciting, right? Absolutely! It is almost as exciting as Omadang’s poetry. So let’s take a look at that: “We took to the tracks/Many like grains of sand/From the winnower some fell off/Desire cheered us on/ Many like grains of sand/ We all wished for gold/Desire cheered us on/Luck looked for her host/We all wished for gold/Nearing the finish line/Luck looked for her host/Like dawn, I crossed the line,” writes the author in the evocative poem titled Crossing The Line.
The author’s imagery evokes sense-impressions by figurative reference to perceptible or 'concrete' objects, scenes, actions, and states to buoy the literary value of the poem. He seems to be writing about the circle of life, in part, in which we roll the proverbial dice and leave the rest to luck, fate, destiny or what have you.
We all wish for gold, a metaphor for success, in our lives. However, we soon find that our lives, this is with respect to grand achievement, approximate the words of Matthew 22:14 of the Good Book: For many are called, but few are chosen.I appreciate the diction blended with an unadulterated honesty unafraid to tilt against windmills.
This comes to the fore in the poem, Masked Men. It is quite explosive.“Spare us from the thin air/Your aim’s not in sight/As you go on your terror missions/Don’t wear masks, neither helmets/Let us know it’s Khalid’s son./ Dense reports from Mogadishu/And as we wait for the death toll/Boko Haram mobilizes for the worst./To whom do you pledge allegiance, And who awards you for the “gallantry”?
Before you snap your fingers in the fashion of poetry lovers everywhere, let us not be so quick as to conclude that the author is talking about the masked men in Uganda. You know those ones who are making waves for all the wrong reasons. To the contrary, the author has cast his net wider and thereby lent his poetry a universalism it would have lacked if it were only focused on Uganda. It is this, coupled with author’s sensitivity to the purpose and power of each word and inflection that makes this collection so compelling.
