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<pre class="wp-block-verse"><strong>TITLE:</strong> <em>THE MEN THAT COULDN’T LOVE ME</em><br> <strong>AUTHOR:</strong> M. CHIDI OKORIE<br> <strong>GENRE:</strong> POETRY<br> <strong>NUMBER OF PAGES:</strong> 75<br> <strong>PUBLISHER:</strong> CREATESPACE INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING PLATFORM <br> <strong>DATE OF PUBLICATION: </strong>OCTOBER 1, 2018<br> <strong>ISBN:</strong> 978-1983663437<br> <strong>REVIEWER</strong>: SHOOLA OYINDAMOLA </pre>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"><p> “Art and love are the same things: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.”<br> ― <strong>Chuck Klosterman</strong> </p></blockquote>



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">One of my favorite books of all time explores human
conscience. It is <em>Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)</em> authored by Carol
Tavris and Elliot Aronson. I hated that book as much as I loved it because it
was written so skillfully, in a way that tortures the reader while informing
them of the intention to torture them.
Beyond the renewed moral sense I gained from reading <em>the book </em>was my attraction towards the art of being human and the
structure of moral difficulties that Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson forced me
to experience.</h5>



<p>I found this same quality in Marie Chidi Okorie’s <em>The Men That Couldn’t Love Me</em>. She did a great job
in torturing the reader in the first pages, while creatively exploring a lover’s
endless cycle of wanting despite not being wanted: imagine reading “I want you”
in different languages and other words for about a thousand times. </p>



<p>Personally, I felt emotional and upset about my
desire to know how things will end, while also admitting my awareness of the
author’s intention. </p>



<p>On the matter of style, Marie used a lot of
repetition to emphasize her intention. In a poem tagged `20, she writes;</p>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">Once I loved you,<br> A million times you liked me.<br> One day you loved me.<br> I did not know what to feel.<br> I thought it was love.<br> I thought it was love.<br> I hate how you ruined me<br> I fed on nothing.<br> You fed on me. </pre>



<p>As empathetic as I
felt for this character, I thought that her love was strange. It was so selfless
that it became selfish. On the surface,
one may assume that the book is about the person she was giving all her love,
attention and affection to but received none from.
However, through another perspective, one would discover a narcissism this
person had. </p>



<p>Going by the latter perspective, the book is really just about her; how she feels deserving of a
person because of all, she was willing to give away of herself. Although
her words describe and divert attention to a failing lover, her uncountable use
of “I” reveals a subtle narcissism that she isn’t admitting. This book is like
a puzzle and the more attention you pay to subtle clues hanging around corners,
the more interesting you would find it.</p>



<p>In the poem ’30’, Marie writes;</p>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">I will not write about<br> you and me<br> I will not write about<br> How I sit at the very same spot.<br> <br> Would it seem I am unwell?<br> That I still think of you?<br> <br> I will not write how I think <br> you are thinking<br> what I am thinking-<br> This is torture. </pre>



<p>In this poem, the
persona seems like her and us; very relatable. This
is us when we are sad, yet search for “slow, sad songs that will make you cry” on
YouTube, and then we cry and feel bad for
feeling even sadder and cry more that we are crying. </p>



<p>The persona says “I
will not want you…” The tenses in her expressions to prove freedom from this
emotional and obsessive bondage reveal a procrastination
of certainty. Despite communicating liberation, non-verbally she is saying, I
have the power not to want you, but right
now I will want you and later, let you
go.</p>



<p>On a page tagged 32, Marie writes:</p>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">Sometimes I wonder where I get it from.<br> The abundance of unreasonable hope.<br> And though life has dealt me too many blows,<br> Somehow, there is a ray of hope. </pre>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" src="https://www.wrr.ng/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Marie-Chidi-Okorie-1024x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-36813" loading="lazy"><figcaption> <a href="https://web.facebook.com/marie.chidi.okorie?__tn__=%2Cd%2AF%2AF-R&;eid=ARAVv64_T697Pa6UwSrdOI93_xe2LWo8Lzlf4u7zC5cq_hHX1cfRF0jvPXY6GEqwHl0u2j-iKi9dX6ma&;tn-str=%2AF">Marie Chidi Okorie | Facebook</a> </figcaption></figure>



<p>Here, upon seeing
both perspectives, I am uncertain if it is an unreasonable hope that she will be loved in return or that she can let go, none
of which is coming to pass. </p>



<p>In my thoughts about
love and relationships with other people, and through The Men that Couldn’t
Love Me; I made these conclusions:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>You can’t have a love of an overwhelming ocean and think that people with
teaspoons will come to bear your outpour. They could dip in and out for a taste
and to quench their thirst but never to
stay because your outpour will devour their existence. </li><li>Second, I concluded that sometimes,
we owe it to ourselves to love someone enough to stay, and love ourselves,
while this same love is needed enough to leave or let go when needed. </li><li>Third, when you constantly choose to make yourself available to
pain or to the absence of something or someone you desire, you deny the
responsibility to choose to be loved,
happy and move on.</li></ul>



<p>Towards the ending of
the book, on a page tagged 43, Marie writes;</p>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">Between you and I <br>is what lovers will never be.<br>Between love and lovers<br>is what we’ll always be.<br>Between you and me<br>between love and lovers,<br>between our love,<br>between that love,<br>is something we’ll never know. <br></pre>



<p>Not all affections,
or people that walk into the doors of your heart, come to stay. Some are just
visitors, and some travelers paying for your time with a desire for them… when their time is up, you must learn to open
the doors and let them go. Open your windows and air their spirits out.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator">



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" style="text-align:center"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Men-That-Couldnt-Love-Me/dp/1983663433" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="DOWNLOAD ON AMAZON (opens in a new tab)">DOWNLOAD ON AMAZON</a></h2>



<hr class="wp-block-separator">



<p>Physically, <em>The
Men That Couldn’t Love Me i</em>s beautiful. Its structure and the
lack of pagination – which I suspect was intentional – contributed to the poems’
persona’s feeling of being lost. I love it. </p>



<p>I recommend that you
purchase a copy of Marie Chidi’s book. It is available on Amazon.</p>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" src="https://www.wrr.ng/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/The-Men-That-Couldn%E2%80%99t-Love-Me.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-36811" loading="lazy"><figcaption><a href="https://web.facebook.com/marie.chidi.okorie?__tn__=%2Cd%2AF%2AF-R&;eid=ARAVv64_T697Pa6UwSrdOI93_xe2LWo8Lzlf4u7zC5cq_hHX1cfRF0jvPXY6GEqwHl0u2j-iKi9dX6ma&;tn-str=%2AF">Marie Chidi Okorie | Facebook</a></figcaption></figure></div>
 
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 <div class="be-author-meta be-author-description">SHOOLA OYINDAMOLA was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. She is a published poet, a feminist, a mentor, a blogger and Co-founder and Resource manager of Sprinng Literary Movement. She loves to writes poems, essays and her non-classifiable opinions. She uses her writing skills with her feminist drive to discuss the gender injustices that need to be fixed. Her first collection of poems is titled “Heartbeat”. Her second, To Bee A Honey, was published in 2017.</div>
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REVIEW: OKORIE’S THE MEN THAT COULDN’T LOVE ME ‘TORTURES THE READER WHILE CREATIVELY EXPLORING UNREQUITED LOVE’
