In Search of Equilibrium

By Theresa Lola

Theresa Lola's debut poetry collection In Search of Equilibrium is an extraordinary and exacting study of death and grieving. Where the algorithms of the body and the memory fail, Lola finds the words that will piece together the binary code of family and restart the recovery program. In doing so, these unflinching poems work towards the hard-wired truths of life itself - finding hope in survival, lines of rescue in faith, a stubborn equilibrium in the equations of loss and renewal.
"Theresa Lola's poems never fail to surprise with her breath-taking ability to create unexpected imagery; they never fail to move as she laments the last years of a loved one; and they never fail to delight with the transformative and healing power of poetry to create beauty." - Bernardine Evaristo

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nine Arches Press
• Release date: Feb 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781911027768

Theresa Lola

Theresa Lola is a British Nigerian Poet, born in 1994. She was joint-winner of the 2018 Brunel International African Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the 2017 Bridport Poetry Prize. In 2018 she was invited by the Mayor of London’s Office to read a commissioned poem at the unveiling of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, alongside Sadiq Khan and the Prime Minister. She has appeared on BBC Radio 4 'Woman’s Hour' and Radio 3 'The Verb' and featured in ASOS Magazine as part of the Octavia Collective. She is an alumna of the Barbican Young Poets Programme.

Book preview

cover.jpg

In Search of Equilibrium

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In Search of Equilibrium

Theresa Lola

ISBN: 9781911027683

ePub ISBN: 9781911027768

Copyright © Theresa Lola

Cover artwork: ‘In the lonely hour (I)’ © Obi Chigozie.

www.facebook.com/theartofobichigozie

www.Instagram.com/gozie.o

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, recorded or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Theresa Lola has asserted her right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

First published February 2019 by:

Nine Arches Press

Unit 14, Sir Frank Whittle Business Centre,

Great Central Way, Rugby.

CV21 3XH

United Kingdom

www.ninearchespress.com

Printed in the United Kingdom by:

Imprint Digital

Nine Arches Press is supported using public funding

by Arts Council England.

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For my grandfather, for family, for faith, and the memories that shake them.

Contents

The Unedited Version of The Lord’s Prayer

Equilibrium

Alzheimer’s Algorithm

Sing with Me and Do Not Die of Thirst

wikiHow To Find Things You Have Lost

Death: Definitions (I)

Friday the 13th

Insomnia is a Cheap Drug

Lean Back as Instructed by Fat Joe

Crisis

ode to edge control gel

Sight Test

The Pastor’s Daughter Refuses to be a Circle

Black Marilyn

wikiHow To Mourn: Mourning in Healthy Ways

Removed from the Edge

Balloons

Judas

Closer

A Shattered Ghazal On Understanding Existence

Dead Man Walking

Tailoring Grief

Reporting Live from Grandpa’s Funeral

The Vow

Pass the Parcel

Cutting Back on Work Shifts

Moving on is Involuntary

Death: Definitions (II)

Lazarus

Blessed Are the Mothers of a Dead Child

We Rebuke This Bad Death

Swimming

Staying Alive

Where is Ja Rule to Make Sense of the Apocalypse

Death Definition (III)

Portrait of Jesus in a Blue Robe

Psalm 151

Notes

Thanks and Acknowledgements

About the author and this book

The Unedited Version of The Lord’s Prayer

¹ Our Father, who art in heaven,

shadow be thy face

² for thy kingdom has been obstructed

by my grandfather forgetting my name.

     Thy will be done

          in his body, maybe

³ God’s will is a butcher’s knife that cuts into one flesh

          to feed another a plate of life lessons.

⁴ I swallowed my grandfather’s suffering

     and my belly is bloated with life lessons.

I guess thy will be done in his body,

          But on the condition he ends up in heaven.

⁵ A man can’t ask for forgiveness for sins he can’t remember.

⁶ Give us a day

     where