THE SINGING MORTAR: A review of Adedayo Agarau’s 'The Years of Blood'

Book: The Years of Blood (96 pages)
Author: Adedayo Agarau
Publisher: Fordham University Press, New York
Year: September 2025
ISBN: 9781531511616

“Instead of music, my father’s old radio reports missing people”

Wind carries sound. The introductory poem, aptly titled, opens portals of grief and lets out the ghost of a country’s conscience—the cry of blood, pounding of pestles, and shovels filling bodies with dust. The consonants ache. The page is heavy with the sound of wounds that won’t heal, silence collapses, and scars bleed anew. What a way to open a discourse!

The second poem, “Ibadan”, establishes a setting for the narrative that follows. Adedayo Agarau gives voice to the anonymous, and metaphors become specifics. The first line is as simple as it is weighty: everywhere weed grows is a wild mouth eating children. It introduces us to a city where children are easy prey. Nowhere is safe. Playgrounds, backyard gardens, courtyards, footpaths to schools, and worship places—everywhere!

Every little detail in Dayo’s lines cranks up the tension. You encounter the cinematic candour of “a lizard swallows an insect and nods” before discovering the thread that connects it to the first stanza: A machete cutting deep through / the bones of a child / is someone else’s answered prayer. How cruel is the god that accepts rituals of young skulls and a cocktail of blood? How sacred is the scream of a child or that of a mother who is ripped apart by the sickle of questions? “Soka” transports you to the crime scene—makes you relive every inch of the horror that transpired in that forest.  

In “The Years of Blood”, Agarau rifles through the debris of memory for “a boy whose face I do not remember”, and witnesses in the crack of time, for an antidote for disappearance. He explores memories through dreams—of what was, what could have been, and, perhaps, what should have been. He is still, through the ninety-six pages of this book, searching for the kidnapped boy(s), following echoes of cries through dirt lanes and river paths, seeking to fill empty coffins and get some closure. “Unfound” and “Empty” detail the combing of a city to locate missing folks—from police stations to media houses, to last gasp prayers, and finally to the feet of bodiless graves. But the search never really ends, even when bodies are found. “We didn’t stop searching. Even after they found your body in the river we used to swim…” (Salt Water)

Agarau strums silence and conjures cockerels & crickets, morning wolves, and old radios onto the pages. His metaphors gut you. Imagine, “the night so dark the lanterns scream.” In Dayo’s verses, shadows have voices. His nature imagery is gripping. You encounter moons leaning into the stream, a picturesque window view of birds on a clothesline, against a background of dusk, and a preying Gecko. 

Wind is a prevalent motif in this collection. This natural element, full of mysteries, serves as an omen. When you encounter wind in Adedayo’s poems, the hairs on your skin stand, and you hold your breath going into the next line. You can’t control what’s about to follow, like, I suspect, he can’t either—he allows the wind to exhume the secrets buried in his subconscious.

“Fine boy writes a poem about anxiety” is a Psalm. It’s a culmination of “all the things that haunt me in my dream.” A poem of longing and nightmares—a walk through shadows, in search of God, and answers that may never taste light. 

Your god is everything 
that lets you come inside

Dayo writes of anguish and yearns for joy. He wants to “wreck the ship in everyone’s grief” 

…I ask myself
what becomes of fire when the flame is put 
to shame. I tell the shadow that light is coming. (On Joy)

There’s an intermission that seems to come with religious festivals, evident in “Prelude, Christmas” and “Ileya”. It’s tentative, but during these events, “birds are crying like birds” and “no child is missing.” These are seasons of revelling in music and the mundane—women braid each other’s hair, fathers remove cobwebs from room corners, and children watch goat fights. The pounding pestles are, for once, not ominous. It’s a period of feasting, dancing and supplication. 

Beyond titles, I’m obsessed with book covers. And this one is harrowingly beautiful. It succinctly captures the book’s essence—symbolic of spectres and silhouettes. The crimson font sits on the grey background, daring you to investigate further. The cover embodies the silent restlessness and surrealness that spans the book. 

At certain depths of grief, you run out of tears, and you’re left with laughter. Pockets of fond childhood memories litter these pages as the author uses nostalgia to trigger recollection. “The Years of Blood” attempts to reconstruct fragments of a broken mirror. It attempts to dust off yesterday’s portraits, but the perpetrators of the evils recounted in these verses are faceless and still at large. In today’s Nigeria, nothing has really changed. Little versions of Soka are discovered yearly, kidnappings are no longer just for rituals—ransoms are now being demanded.

“Night, prayer”, my favourite poem, is a conscious organism, mindful of self and the environment, unapologetically vulnerable, blending personal and universal affairs. The poet persona waits for (on) God by a dancing candle flame. In the same room, a wall Gecko enjoys its dinner—a prayer swiftly answered. The writer employs contrasts to achieve balance. 

Be careful. That it glows 
does not mean
it isn’t in flames 

From the privacy of the room, the poem ebbs towards the other room, where a father snorts in his sleep. The smell of carbon wafts in from the street, where men, tired of losing their boys, keep vigil. There’s a seamless flow of thoughts and lyrics. The mundane and the existential roll into one. A candle becomes emblematic. Dancing fire is as exact as it is an oxymoron. 

Small fires are everywhere—
under the bushel,
in someone’s house,
in my parents’ marriage.
I ask God to find the edge
and trim our fire.

The best of poems are loops—they dig inwards, and return to the beginning to find closure. And this poem ends, like the book began, with the wind. 

As an answered prayer
wind arrives,
blows the candle out.

BIO
Jide Badmus is a poet, editor, and literary critic; author of 4 poetry books (and 8 chapbooks). He is the poetry editor for Con-scio Magazine, a mentor in the SprinNG Writers fellowship, and a member of the Board of Advisors for Libretto Magazine,
Badmus is a literary promoter, founder of INKspiredng, a Nigerian literary community and digital publishing platform with passion for young voices and the grassroots, curating 3 festivals, 5 anthologies and over 20 chapbooks.
Jide’s reviews have been published on The Rumpus, The Nigeria Review, Lion and Lilac, and elsewhere.