The poems in Taofeek Ayeyemi’s Some Stars Do Not Fall are deeply interconnected, forming a structure that resembles prose more than traditional poetry.
By Evidence Egwuono Adjarho
In 2020, award-winning author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, experienced a profound loss: the death of her father, Professor James Nwoye Adichie. Following this loss, Adichie would release, in an essay, her experience with grief and the ache that comes with losing a loved one. The death of her father undeniably left a dent in the author’s life. This sting, caused by the absence of a beloved father, reappears in the voice of a male narrator in Taofeek Ayeyemi’s chapbook, Some Stars Do Not Fall.
Some Stars Do Not Fall is a collection of deeply personal poems that highlights the poet-persona’s journey through grief, memory, longing, and healing. At its heart lies the persona’s emotional navigation through the death of his father.
Questions such as these: what does it feel like to be separated from someone whose presence has not only shaped your life but also become a part of yours? How does one learn to live again with such absence? become the preoccupation of readers’ minds as they turn pages of this book.
The poems in Ayeyemi’s Some Stars Do Not Fall are deeply interconnected, forming a structure that resembles prose more than traditional poetry. This hybrid style gives the book a unique duality: it flows with the narrative cohesion of prose while preserving the lyricism and stylistic depth of poetry. Through this form, we journey with the narrator as he moves through shifting emotional states—cycles of denial, pain, questioning, and a slow, reluctant acceptance.
From the first poem, “Homecoming On Father’s Demise”, readers are plunged directly into emotional unrest in Some Stars Do Not Fall through the opening lines, “I step into our street and thunderstorms welcome me”. This is how Ayeyemi introduces readers to the inner world of the narrator, a world frayed by emotional turbulence and grief.
In the first few lines, the narrator focuses on his environment, a possible defense mechanism to avoid confrontation with the sad truth of his father’s passing away. But indeed, the thunderstorm, debris, rainstorm, are all symbolic representations of the narrator’s state of mind.
As Some Stars Do Not Fall unfolds, we are drawn deeper into the narrator’s most intimate memories and moments of emotional exposure. In poems such as “My First Outing After Father’s Death” and “My Second Outing After Father’s Death”, the narrator offers a raw and honest account of trying to make sense of his world, only to find that it has changed completely and he is in an ‘alien land’. The poems are confessional and lay bare the narrator’s inner struggle to find meaning in the aftermath of loss and communicate with his late father.
What then is the role of time in healing? Does it offer closure or deepen the wounds? Does grief ever end or evolve? Taofeek Ayeyemi asks these questions through Some Stars Do Not Fall. But he does not simply stop there. Through the poet-persona’s introspections, soliloquies, and journey toward acceptance of his father’s demise, we are not only able to answer these questions but also see grief from a nuanced vantage point.
In “Conversations With My Father’s Ghost The Night Of His Eighth Day’s Memorial” and “Conversation With My Father’s Ghost On The Night Of His Fortieth Day’s Memorial”, the narrator questions his father. But they are unanswered, moreso responses that will never come.
The recurring use of question marks at the end of lines thus becomes symbolic: the questions remain open-ended, left for both readers and the persona to fill in, emphasising the silence that now characterises the relationship between father and son. They stay as questions, and neither the readers nor the poet persona can form a conclusion.
The author also draws us into active reflection in Some Stars Do Not Fall, when we are not being led through memories of the persona’s father. For instance, in the poem “A Poem In Which I Conversed With My Thought As I Walked Into A Day Moon After A Short, Cold Night”, we encounter a striking opening framed as a question and answer:
Q: What do we call a moon
that hit the sun in the face
at the hour of eight in the morning?A: An egg doesn’t just get black.
A cowry doesn’t just get brown.
Honey doesn’t just get bitter.
The answer provided is not direct or easily explained. Thus, it invites readers to pause and contemplate, to try to decode the meanings the poem offers. Its subjectivity to multiple interpretations not only makes it compelling but also reinforces a sense of Africanness– the tradition of responding to questions with parables or proverbs.
What sets Some Stars Do Not Fall apart–perhaps what makes it more poetic and even somewhat esoteric in the best sense–is how Taofeek Ayeyemi infuses cultural and religious identity into the poems unapologetically.
His use of Yoruba language, for instance, captures emotional nuances (woe unto me who had to call a friend for translations). Frankly, this inclusion of Yoruba evoked a complex kind of envy, the kind that arises when people speak a language unfamiliar to you, making you simultaneously feel a sense of exclusion and a deep desire to understand.
By the end of Some Stars Do Not Fall, two things become clear. First, Ayeyemi has laid himself bare in this chapbook. Writing like this demands a shedding of pretense—a willingness to be vulnerable. And that vulnerability is palpable. Second, this chapbook is a testament to his versatility and his command of Yoruba as both a language and a literary tool.
Evidence Egwuono Adjarho is a Gen Z who loves God. She is passionate about the power of African literature and dedicates her time to amplifying it through book reviews and video contents. Connect with her on Instagram, X, Facebook, and LinkedIn: @evidence_egwuono