Faber Faber Adam.

by Gboyega Odubanjo

The debut collection of poetry by Gboyega Odubanjo.

'On 21 September 2001, the torso of a black boy was discovered in the River Thames, near Tower Bridge in central London, clothed only in an orange pair of girls' shorts. Given the name "Adam" by police officers, the unidentified boy was between four and eight years old. What comes next cannot without a story of water and offering. The sun shines and we gather because the river allows it. Na from clap dem dey enter dance. We enter with, and as, Adam.' - Gboyega Odubanjo

Haunted by the discovery of the remains of a young Black boy in the River Thames in London, 2001, Gboyega Odubanjo's Adam builds from the Genesis myth and from Yoruba culture to examine with an unflinching eye the disappearance of a child and its implication for all Black lives, and for the society in which we live.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2024

Reviews

[Jess Esa · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can feel the river running right through this collection and sinking beneath your skin. Profound. RIP Gboyega, you gentle soul.

[nadia]

then god said   let me make man in my image
man in my likeness   man like me
man like light and man like dark
let man nyam and chop whatever   be good
  god said   give man arm to skank   leg to shake
tongue and chest to speak with
give man cash to spray   put man's face on it
  said give man sea and sky and trees
and zones one to six on the oyster so man can see it
    now man said   rah   swear down
       man said   show me

[Wouter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of poems was written after the discovery of a torso of a Black boy in the river Thames in Central London in 2021, a boy as young as four to seven years old and named Adam by the police officers who investigated his case. Gboyega Odubanjo reflects on the boy’s tragic life and death, ruminates about the boy's family, about Black lives more generally and society at large while taking inspiration from the Bible story of Genesis and from Yoruba culture.

Tragically, the author Gboyega Odubanjo himself drowned in 2023, which adds extra meaning to these poems given the theme of water and drowning in this collection.

My favourite poems were Bronze Adam of Benin and Against Resting in Peace.

[Jess Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heartbreaking and heartstopping and chilling and warming and swift and lasting 😢 rest in peace Gboyega you were such a seer

[Dayi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best poetry book I've read in a very long time

[Kelly-Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly original.

[Joe Skilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

help me in how many rivers are there boys
washing their hair and swimming
and seeing themselves for the first time
resting their eyes and are they not the same
waters if i keep going will i not eventually
find you on a bank waiting your toes smoothing the ripples
your hand out bonjour je m’apelle

[Nic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Odubanjo uses the biblical creation story (myth if you’re agnostic) as the premise for his first (and sadly, only) poetry collection. Like the river that the eponymous Adam was found in, the book gushes the readers through grimy sooty water to remind us of how we are all connected through this anonymous body.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bright bright poems.

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gosh. What a powerful reading experience. This is a book about the empathy, community, and pain. It’s about the idea of how can we be a society, when the vulnerable suffer. It’s about voice, giving it space to heard. It hurts. This posthumous debut is sharp, touching, and thought provoking. I am sure Odubanjo would be proud to see this collection published.

[George Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I rarely read poetry but this completely persuaded me that I actually do love it when it's done as well as this collection. Odubanjo writes with such wit and the rhythm carries throughout all poems. My personal favourites were genesis, a story about water and man so would highly recommend looking them up. So heartbreaking to learn how odubanjo passed away and very chilling to see the links between his death and that of the unknown child in the thames 25 yrs ago that is the centrepoint of this collection in particular

[meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

heartbreaking and utterly beautiful - what a talent

[Juliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

“adam at the very centre — neither of paradise nor of earth — neither dead nor living but in fact actually found dead in the thames and actually the first man to live.” Between Genesis and the apocalypse lands Gboyega Odubanjo’s posthumously published poetry collection Adam, which was on its third draft when Odubanjo tragically passed away last year. In 2001, “the torso of a black boy was discovered in the River Thames, […] clothed only in an orange pair of girls’ shorts. Given the name "Adam" by police officers, the unidentified boy was between four and eight years old.” This is the context of Odubanjo’s poems, which are haunted by this discovery, and build from the Adam of Genesis into Yoruba culture and an exploration of Blackness. There are many excellent poems in the collection: ‘The Lyric Adam’, ‘A Potted History of East’, ‘Rewilding’, ‘You: The Many Adams of Adam’, and the brilliant ‘The Drums Sing of Adam’. In ‘Crown’, I enjoyed the thoughts on hair, how “generations have come and / gone and still it holds. this immaculate empire without stray.” And in ‘The Garden’, the stark declaration that “this is not our country this is not a country it’s a burned CD and a tracklist we’ve written ourselves.” In all I enjoyed the urgency and the emphasis on life, on living it and acknowledging it: “do not die again / the child we searched for / the child who returned home / the child who became the home / wait / all the names have been exhausted / there is nothing left to dig a grave / wait and enjoy life / wait and bury me / your touch is life / your gapped teeth please me / the story is yours”.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

The titular Adam was the name given to the body of a Black boy, aged between 4 and 7, who was found floating in the Thames in 2001. This collection of poems is an exploration of who Adam was and who he might have become, and an expression of grief for how this boy died and was cast aside, and more broadly, for all the children who are destroyed, lost or hurt by conflicts and decisions entirely outside of their control. The grief that permeates this collection is made particularly poignant as the reader knows that Gboyega Odubanjo died in 2023 at the age of only 27. Reading this, it is impossible not to think of his vibrant life, and to mourn his loss. Adam is a fitting showcase of Odubanjo's remarkable poetic voice, and his imagination, empathy, and skill as a poet. This is a remarkable debut collection.

[Alice Brooker · Rating 5 out of 5]

The words themselves feel like rain: full and always falling. There is so much meaning to unpack in Adam, and each time I retrace a line I am finding something new running up my spine. There is an ocean of feeling, yet it sprays out so sensitively on the page that its understanding becomes phonetic, reachable. I am in deep blue awe of this collection.

Favourite poems:
A Story About Water
Function
You: The Many Adams of Adam
To the High Commissioner
Against Resting in Peace

[Anne Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection has a lot of energy and some very good individual poems. However, it doesn't gel as a collection and there are a number of poems which are obscure and needed a much stronger editor to make them sing. The idea behind the poetry is good but it's not given full expression here. Interesting but not inspiring.

[Jake Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect.

[Goodreeds User · Rating 5 out of 5]

🥲

[Booklover87]

rip great gboyega

[leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

heartbreaking. tragic. lyrical. language used in the most careful and gorgeous way. thoroughly enjoyed

[jesse slater · Rating 5 out of 5]

“did you ever swim in it or maybe float” (p. 35)

[Georgie May · Rating 5 out of 5]

RIP Gboyega, a tragic and beautiful collection

[Noémie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the ones about water the most, personal preference!

[Nicky Crabb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving debut poetry collection published posthumously following Gboyega’s death in 2023. Brilliant exploration of masculinity, race, inspired by the body of a black boy in the Thames.

[Shuchi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely gutted

[Eric Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Came away with a feeling that Adam gave birth to the 21st century as Jack the Ripper did the 20th

[Amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Jayant Kashyap · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine collection dwelling between life and death.

[Karolina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant collection with a voice that's so bare and undecorative. The collection itself is a masterfully mapped mind-scape; Gboyega was surely a pioneering spirit of a new type of poetry that you can see emerging in his poems. It pierces right into the psyche of the reader, it interrogates the very fabric of their mind, calculating their exact capacity for empathy. The heart of this collection is the reality that Adam mirrors back to society what it really is, what it has become, it's through Adams body that society gets to experience itself, its flaws, the absurdities in a physical form. What Gboyega uncovers in his poems are ourselves, our capacity for humanity.

What is much more heartbreaking and a rather violent irony that Gboyega faced such an analogous fate - drowned in a lake on the Kelmarsh estate at the age of 27; I still grieve for him, a total stranger, yet I have seen first hand the damage done to creatives that find their sorrow and drugs intermixing, and it's a total quagmire, a brutal wave that can strike unexpectedly and takes people in pain under, cutting their brilliant lives short. I want to believe we are moving into an era where creativity and poetry is no longer synonymous with self-destructive narratives. I want to believe that Gboyega's work and spirit can lead us into higher conclusions about ourselves. Rest in Peace you Beautiful Soul.