Each One a Furnace: Poems

by Tolu Oloruntoba

Second Place Winner of the 2023 RCLAS Fred Cogswell Award For Excellence In PoetryFrom the author of The Junta of Happenstance, here is a brilliant new collection of poems—a burning chronicle of passage and stillness and restlessness.DOROTHY LIVESAY POETRY PRIZE, FINALISTFRED COGSWELL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN POETRY, LONGLISTEach One a Furnace explores (im)migration, diasporas, transience, and instability by following the behaviour, and abundant variety, of finches. The often-migratory birds in these poems typify the unrest, and inability to rest, that animate the lives of billions in the modern world. Out of the register of ornithology, themes of difficulty, adversity, and migrancy, urban ennui, and the psychic struggles of diasporic peoples take shape as those unable to be at rest in the world take to improbable flight. Trailing the global mobility of birds, in urban and non-urban settings, in historical and contemporary contexts, and through the metaphysical and concrete, Each One a Furnace is a chronicle of struggle within, and between, cultures.

Genres: Poetry

87 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 22, 2022

About the author

Tolu Oloruntoba was born in Ibadan, Nigeria, and practiced medicine before his current work managing projects for BC health authorities.

His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Harvard Divinity Bulletin, PRISM International, Pleiades, Columbia Journal Online, Obsidian, The Maynard, and the Humber Literary Review, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

His debut chapbook, Manubrium, was published by Anstruther Press, and was shortlisted for the 2020 bpNichol Chapbook Award.

A full-length collection of his poetry, The Junta of Happenstance, is forthcoming from Anstruther Books in Spring 2021.

He lives in Surrey, BC, in the territories of the Semiahmoo, Katzie, and Kwantlen First Nations.

Reviews

[Lynn Tait · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous collection. A literary learning experience. Tolu's command of sound and language: Be still my heart. The use of Nature and especially birds/finches as stand alone images and as metaphor for cultural unrest, change, community and peoples connected with me. Very interesting use and weaving of abstraction with concrete images, and his use of poem's last lines to lead into the next poem. Just a few of the many stand out poems for me: Brambling; Galapagos; Elementary Divination, Dermatosis Papulosa Nigra; Eophonia; Painted Bunting.

[Ar · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I need a country to recycle me, and all of it; bonus points for refineries of crude grieving. Crowded by exile, there remains the ghost, prompted by groves, of the pristine. Ship me back something to believe."

[S.]

This was interesting, skillful, and creatively structured; certain poems moved me, and the poet's mastery of language is clear.

To be entirely frank, I'm afraid too many allusions went over my head for me to give a specific star rating; I don't want to offer a half-baked rating because of not "getting" it. No book or work of art owes legibility to every audience, certainly, but I do think that readers with a stronger grasp of ornithology (e.g. finches) and/or the specific events described here would have a richer experience.

A couple of excerpts that stood out to me:
"Disorganized at the border of safety | danger,
I have never been able to lay down for love.
Forgive me. Don't touch me. Don't leave me."

"Some skies are hard
and will break your neck
if you fly into them,
and people will step around your body
on the sidewalk."

[Margaryta · Rating 4 out of 5]

The premise of Oloruntoba's second collection is fascinating and the way the bird poems are dispersed throughout the collection makes them act as connective tissue for poems that revolve, once more, around topics of culture and identity. Yet there are also many more melancholy pieces in this collection than in the debut. I found myself sitting more with the atmosphere Oloruntoba has created, rather than simply rushing to the notes at the end to understand the references and allusions.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5⭐️