<body><div class="booster-block booster-read-block">
 <div class="twp-read-time">
 	<i class="booster-icon twp-clock"></i> <span>Read Time:</span>7 Minute, 8 Second </div>

 </div><p></p><a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Broken_heart.svg" target="_blank"><img class="zemanta-img-inserted zemanta-img-configured " title="Broken heart symbol" alt="Broken heart symbol" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Broken_heart.svg/128px-Broken_heart.svg.png" width="300" height="405" loading="lazy"></a>
<p>There is probably no theme under heaven that has received much attention as love. To test its popularity ‘scientifically’, I googled the word. It was a shocking 5.95 billion results that beamed under the search box. If the word love could bring up this number, I wondered, what will <a class="zem_slink" title="Sex" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">the word sex</a> bring up? I quickly typed ‘sex’ to see the margin sex trumps love with in popular internet discourse, as we are probably in the most sex-obsessed period of human existence.</p>
<p>Google turned up 2.55 billion results. Phew. Love wins.</p>
<p>Music, movies and <a class="zem_slink" title="Poetry" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">poetry</a> have been staple mediums for the expression of love in all forms and perspectives, for ages. Poetry especially has a well carved out reputation as a formidable vehicle of love. Prominently featured in these mediums of expression is the sub-topic of <a class="zem_slink" title="Unrequited love" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrequited_love" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">unrequited love</a>. When we desire to share this all-time popular feeling in a personal way with someone, and we are turned down or ignored, it hurts us and reduces our productivity and enjoyment of life—at least for a time.</p>
<p>In Bubbllinna’s poem Virgin, we are served a striking treatment of this theme. We are taking on a musical journey through the pain of a man who is very much in love with the woman of his dreams and is doggedly fighting for her heart: not with daggers and clubs, but perhaps with the persuasive power of word and reason.</p>
<blockquote><p>Virgin; it was given on a platter<br>
pulsing with hope, nothing else did matter<br>
save the reply one sought to hear.<br>
Maybe held promise – yes was best,<br>
and no never flirted with the thoughts,<br>
but it came wrapped in a blatancy that hurt<br>
and stripped the heart of its true colour.</p></blockquote>
<p>The poem begins with a word (as all poems do) but this word, and the punctuation that follows, has been chosen carefully by the poet to gently confuse, then surprise and ultimately offer enjoyment to the reader, on the realization of its beautiful intent, after reading the poem again. The poem is not about a virgin, in the “I have not tasted the forbidden fruit before” sense of the word. But we will get to what it means.</p>
<p>The first stanza doesn’t just start with a significant word. The imagery the first three lines evoke is wonderful, and sets the stage for the drama to unfold. The guy has finally approached the girl of his dreams, with some trepidation, and with his ‘virgin’ heart, which has never loved a girl before, ‘pulsing with hope’ on the platter of words he uses to ask her out. The fear of a negative answer is not strong because this guy has probably ‘read’ the ‘signs’ very well, and so is quite confident that a Yes is very much what will be the result of this official tendering of intentions. But the succeeding lines in this stanza paint a woeful picture. The No that never really crossed his mind, has become the reply he gets: his heart is out in the cold, and without a union with and nourishment from that which it beats for, it begins to be “stripped of its true colour.”</p>
<blockquote><p>Picked from whence twas flung,<br>
it’s offered again though refusal stung.<br>
This time, its coat wears a new colour;<br>
the blue of the sea and bright skies<br>
but the eyes were closed to the sight.<br>
Masked with calculated ignorance,<br>
always the refrain of the dreaded no<br>
Never a maybe, never a yes.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Sometimes, a negative answer hurts bad. Still, even in the throes of the hurt, and with the “I will forget this girl,” “she is not even that cool,” and “there are better girls out there who will love me for me,” consolation dirges playing in the heart, some will find that they can’t resist the urge to try again. So here, the guy picks his heart from ‘whence twas flung’ (how has the guy been surviving!) and offers it again, this time dyeing the pale heart in blue so it can evoke the cool answer of Yes and not the other hotful answer. Same response: No. Not maybe. Not “I will think about it”. Just No.</p>
<blockquote><p>Months slip into years and near-eternity<br>
for a life spent harvesting hopes in vain<br>
reality slides in with the final slashes,<br>
that puncture the balloon of dreams<br>
and life becomes a canvas of grey splashes.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is probably the most crucial stanza. Repeated askings. Repeated Nos. They both become active catalysts that push the guy’s very existence to the acidic end of the pH scale of reality. Hope becomes despair, and his life that used to be bright and colourful and fun becomes ‘a canvas of grey splashes’.</p>
<p>I should spare some words for an aspect of the stylistic treatment of this poem. Bubbllinna treats us to a delicious mix of true and oblique rhymes. We have the true rhymes of platter/matter juxtaposed with the oblique rhymes of thoughts/hurt and hear/best. The streak continues in the second stanza too: true rhymes of flung/stung sharing space with the oblique rhymes, skies/sight (taking the end consonants into consideration). In the last stanza, we are fed a different kind of rhymes: that of movement; a syllabic kind that stresses related parts of words . So we have, to DO/for-GO-tten/to ME, like a sine curve, in:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Time zooms past as it’s wont to do<br>
and blunts the pain still not forgotten.<br>
The one named Kismet brings her to me</p>
<p>And we have thorns/bleeds, in:</p>
<p>yearning for my heart of thorns.<br>
Tightly she clutches and bleeds.</p>
<p>And un-TIED/be-COME in:</p>
<p>Drops of blood for each knot untied<br>
to reveal the battered mass I did become.</p></blockquote>
<p>The kind of rhymes this poem employs frees it from the suffocation that a forced attempt at rhyming induces. I also like the fact that the poet did not thread a sesquipedalian path to express herself and pass her message across, something some poets are wont to do, and a certain ex-lawmaker in Nigeria is famous for.</p>
<p>The remaining part of the poem takes us on another journey. Some people are not fortunate to have the love of their lives someday turn around to love them. While some are lucky to have this happen, some others find another person that complements them to the full reach of their dreams. It is these two scenarios that the latter half of the poem explores, depending on how you want to look at it. Time has raced on, soothing his pain but not obliterating it. Fate sends love to him, but this time, love meets a changed person who has been broken and disillusioned. Some of us know what it means to have anger and hurt transferred to innocent us.</p>
<blockquote><p>yearning for my heart of thorns.<br>
Tightly she clutches and bleeds.<br>
Drops of blood for each knot untied<br>
to reveal the battered mass I did become.</p></blockquote>
<p>These four lines, ensconced in the last stanza, paint a touching and powerful scenario of someone loving us even when we have been broken and disillusioned by the dashed hopes of a much desired requital of love. In this poem, this new someone, who yearns for the <a class="zem_slink" title="Broken heart" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_heart" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">broken heart</a> of this guy, finds that she has to contend with the transfer of his anger, hurt and pain, on her, as she mends him not just for him but for her also; so, to be happy, she first “threads and patches” his battered heart and then “paints in the colours” the guy “used to know.”</p>
<p>It is a slow process most times, as the closing line of the poem reminds us:</p>
<blockquote><p>I hurt, she loves and I remember.</p></blockquote>
<p>He still hurts, but with all this love around him, he begins to remember what it was like when the bright blue of the skies played with the deep blue of the ocean on his life’s canvas. He remembers the promise of the pleasurable colours of love that motivated him to begin the quest in the first place. He juxtaposes the variegated vibrancy of the love being offered with the monochromatic blandness of the loneliness he still clutches too. And we the readers, after entering his life—their lives—we can only hope that they both reach a place and time when what they both feel becomes a balanced chemical reaction of romantic attraction and requited love.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Visit the <a href="http://www.naijastories.com/members/sibbylwhyte/">POET’S PROFILE HERE</a>. Also read the <a href="http://www.naijastories.com/2013/06/virgin/">POEM HERE</a></p>
 
 <div class="booster-block booster-author-block">
 <div class="be-author-details layout-square align-left">
 <div class="be-author-wrapper">
 <div class="booster-row">
 <div class="booster-column booster-column-two booster-column-mobile">
 <div class="be-author-image">
 <img alt="" src="https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3de36b6da89639b3d80d015f84d2cfc35212bb0678ceb13c46dc8c712831d196?s=400&;d=mm&;r=g" class="avatar avatar-400 photo avatar-img" height="400" width="400" loading="lazy"> </div>
 </div>
 <div class="booster-column booster-column-eight booster-column-mobile">
 <div class="author-details">
 <header class="twp-plugin-title twp-author-title">
 <h2>About Post Author</h2>
 </header>
 <h4 class="be-author-meta be-author-name">
 <a href="https://www.wrr.ng/author/admin/" class="booster-url-link">
 Words Rhymes &; Rhythm </a>
 </h4>
 <div class="be-author-meta be-author-email">
 <a href="mailto:%20info@wrr.ng" class="booster-url-link">
 <span class="booster-svg-icon booster-svg-envelope"><svg class="booster-svg" aria-hidden="true" role="img" focusable="false" viewbox="0 0 24 24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="24" height="24"><path fill="currentColor" d="M0 3v18h24v-18h-24zm6.623 7.929l-4.623 5.712v-9.458l4.623 3.746zm-4.141-5.929h19.035l-9.517 7.713-9.518-7.713zm5.694 7.188l3.824 3.099 3.83-3.104 5.612 6.817h-18.779l5.513-6.812zm9.208-1.264l4.616-3.741v9.348l-4.616-5.607z"></path></svg></span>info@wrr.ng </a>
 </div>
 <div class="be-author-meta be-author-url">
 <a href="https://wrr.ng/about-us/" target="_blank" class="booster-url-link">
 <span class="booster-svg-icon booster-svg-sphere"><svg class="booster-svg" aria-hidden="true" role="img" focusable="false" viewbox="0 0 24 24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="24" height="24"><path fill="currentColor" d="M 11.25 1.5 C 5.035156 1.5 0 6.535156 0 12.75 C 0 18.964844 5.035156 24 11.25 24 C 17.464844 24 22.5 18.964844 22.5 12.75 C 22.5 6.535156 17.464844 1.5 11.25 1.5 Z M 17.617188 16.5 C 17.816406 15.550781 17.941406 14.546875 17.984375 13.5 L 20.972656 13.5 C 20.894531 14.535156 20.652344 15.542969 20.253906 16.5 Z M 4.882812 9 C 4.683594 9.949219 4.558594 10.953125 4.515625 12 L 1.527344 12 C 1.605469 10.964844 1.847656 9.957031 2.246094 9 Z M 16.078125 9 C 16.304688 9.960938 16.441406 10.964844 16.484375 12 L 12 12 L 12 9 Z M 12 7.5 L 12 3.109375 C 12.34375 3.210938 12.679688 3.375 13.011719 3.609375 C 13.636719 4.050781 14.230469 4.726562 14.738281 5.566406 C 15.085938 6.148438 15.386719 6.796875 15.640625 7.5 Z M 7.761719 5.566406 C 8.269531 4.726562 8.863281 4.050781 9.488281 3.609375 C 9.820312 3.375 10.15625 3.207031 10.5 3.109375 L 10.5 7.5 L 6.859375 7.5 C 7.113281 6.792969 7.414062 6.148438 7.761719 5.566406 Z M 10.5 9 L 10.5 12 L 6.015625 12 C 6.058594 10.964844 6.195312 9.960938 6.421875 9 Z M 2.246094 16.5 C 1.847656 15.542969 1.605469 14.535156 1.527344 13.5 L 4.515625 13.5 C 4.558594 14.546875 4.683594 15.550781 4.882812 16.5 Z M 6.015625 13.5 L 10.5 13.5 L 10.5 16.5 L 6.421875 16.5 C 6.195312 15.539062 6.058594 14.535156 6.015625 13.5 Z M 10.5 18 L 10.5 22.390625 C 10.15625 22.289062 9.820312 22.125 9.488281 21.890625 C 8.863281 21.449219 8.269531 20.773438 7.761719 19.933594 C 7.414062 19.351562 7.113281 18.703125 6.859375 18 Z M 14.738281 19.933594 C 14.230469 20.773438 13.636719 21.449219 13.011719 21.890625 C 12.679688 22.125 12.34375 22.292969 12 22.390625 L 12 18 L 15.640625 18 C 15.386719 18.707031 15.085938 19.351562 14.738281 19.933594 Z M 12 16.5 L 12 13.5 L 16.484375 13.5 C 16.441406 14.535156 16.304688 15.539062 16.078125 16.5 Z M 17.984375 12 C 17.945312 10.953125 17.816406 9.949219 17.617188 9 L 20.253906 9 C 20.652344 9.957031 20.894531 10.964844 20.972656 12 Z M 19.46875 7.5 L 17.222656 7.5 C 16.785156 6.121094 16.179688 4.914062 15.457031 3.949219 C 16.453125 4.429688 17.355469 5.066406 18.144531 5.855469 C 18.648438 6.359375 19.089844 6.910156 19.46875 7.5 Z M 4.355469 5.855469 C 5.144531 5.066406 6.046875 4.429688 7.042969 3.949219 C 6.320312 4.914062 5.714844 6.121094 5.277344 7.5 L 3.03125 7.5 C 3.410156 6.910156 3.851562 6.359375 4.355469 5.855469 Z M 3.03125 18 L 5.277344 18 C 5.714844 19.378906 6.320312 20.585938 7.042969 21.550781 C 6.046875 21.070312 5.144531 20.433594 4.355469 19.644531 C 3.851562 19.140625 3.410156 18.589844 3.03125 18 Z M 18.144531 19.644531 C 17.355469 20.433594 16.453125 21.070312 15.457031 21.550781 C 16.179688 20.585938 16.785156 19.378906 17.222656 18 L 19.46875 18 C 19.089844 18.589844 18.648438 19.140625 18.144531 19.644531 Z M 18.144531 19.644531 "></path></svg></span>https://wrr.ng/about-us/ </a>
 </div>
 </div>
 <div class="be-author-profiles">
 </div>
 </div>
 </div>
 </div>
 </div>
 </div>
 </body>