Uche Chidozie Okorie’s Fading Solfeggio is a 128-page poetry collection that laments like a muted cry in an era overwhelmed with noise. It is a poetry collection that mourns the quiet erosion of melody, meaning, and memory amidst chaos. This collection of poems by Uche Chidozie Okorie which serves as a debut from the ripe nouveau-riche publisher, Literary Dungeon Publisher, presents itself as a compendium of haunting and daring declamations of our collective degeneration. Solfeggio, which is the ancient system of teaching pitch through do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti (solfa notes), now “fading,” becomes a perfect metaphor for lost harmony in the personal voice, cultural rhythm, and unity of soul. The poet documents this decadence in various forms, blending crude introspection, social outrage, ecological grief, technological allurement, and dogged hope.
From the opening poems, the vulnerability of the poet is well-cut. In “Introvert,” which is the first poem in the collection, the poet personae confesses, “I am the introvert with fragile legs” (Introvert, verse 2, line 5, Pg. 2). This is an admission of inner fear under external pressure. The vulnerability expounded in this poem devolves into self-doubt in “The Worst Poem,” where writing becomes a violent struggle, yet a delicacy in the tongue of fire: “I lynch letters and stab sentences, // Slice logic with a blunt knife into a tasteless recipe” (The Worst Poem, verse 1, line 6 & 7, Pg. 5). These expose the fact that Okorie does not idolize the craft, he revels its violence, the scavenger nature of the young bard, the troubles of an excellent poet, in his coven, evolving on his work, but unknown as what he writes are “dumped by magazines, like used plastics, // On congested Nigerian suburbs” (The Worst Poem, verse 2, line 9. Pg. 5). This re-echoes the publisher’s moto of rare, unseen, unknown, unheard. Uche Chidozie is definitely one of the voices we are privileged to hear.
The collection erupts into aching lamentations, replete with alliterations and sober sounds. The poem “Stupidity” satirizes the arrogance of the present generation with irony that is both stinging and incisive: “How did we come to know the past better // Than our ancestors’ ancestors?” (Stupidity, verse 3, line 1 & 2. Pg. 3). This is thought provoking, and awe inspiring. The poet’s lamentations transmute into romantism in the latter part of the section “Dementia” which offers a pleasant contrast, as it superfluously celebrates and praises agro-products in poems like; Ginger, Moringa, Vegetable, Relax and Let Love Lead, but foretelling ecological annihilation, environmental degradation as in “Ada,” where the forest is “Raped and brutalized // By the fists of timber scavengers” (Ada, verse 2, line 2 & 3. Pg. 56).
This 2026 poetry collection further surges in revelation, juxtaposing two separate ages, one devoid of digital technology while on the other hand, technology and modernity receive savage scrutiny as it is evident in poems in the section “Space Stations”. Here the poet personae asserts that social media can be a recurrent slavery transaction transcended into the modern day: “Freedom has been sold on the black market, // Where richest men would lavish their vaults to buy a tweet” (Nineteen Eighty-Four, verse 2, line 1& 2. Pg. 73). Smartphones seduce like false gods: “It is some type of God // And deserves to be worshipped” (iPhone, verse 4, line 4 & 5. Pg. 65).
The poet’s tone descends into a soul wrenching rhythm as it addresses the theme of migration and dreams that metamorphose into bitterness in the section titled “Countries of Particular Concern” where the poem “Coming to America,” narrates with desperate satire: “I am packaging all my bankruptcy with community interest and no collateral, // To sell it out in Alibaba” (Coming to America, verse 1, line 1, 2 & 3. Pg. 98). Ironically, the poet decries the essence of his existence in a nation full of ‘patients’ “I feel like a patient, not a personality, // in this grand hospitality” (Very Important Position, verse 6, line 2 & 3. Pg. 85). In “Rare Resources” the poet mourns one of the justifications for his desire to depart the ‘patient land’, “There is no crude oil left to be discovered in this barren land. // Digging— // But if you mine deeper// there’s witchcraft deposited beyond the reach of your measurements” (Rare Resources, verse 1, line 1, 2, 3 & 4. Pg. 88). Deeper into migration, the poet explores bitter dreams of deportation in the poem “Coming to America,” “After strolling stealthily from the Mexican border and jumping skyscraper and barbed wires. // Operation high jump, such a wasted Olympic talent.” This serves as a bitter representation of a lost dream.
The title poem, “Fading Solfeggio,” is a summary of the despair, the foundation of the poetry collection, calling on sympathizers and urging readers to weep for a generation losing its values, culture, collective unity and love: “The last note of the Igbo flutist vaporises into a coma. // While, some fanciful and chaotic vibration dominates the public spectrum with collapsing bass and stressed treble” (Fading Solfeggio, verse 5, line 1 & 2. Pg. 110). True cultural melody is drowned in fake noise as Uche further states that “Buttocks bump and legs flutter irregularly, // It is not even Afro songs. // Something Fela will resurrect for” (Fading Solfeggio, verse 5, line 3 & 4. Pg. 110). This showcases Uche Chidozie’s Fading Solfeggio as a powerful elegy for silenced voices.
It is true that despair never fully wins as stated by Frank Frot. The last section containing seven poems presents a didactic resolution “Sweet Smelling Sacrifice” is the denouement, and also the poem that closes on redemptive fire: “I burn my brain as a sweet-smelling sacrifice for this generation. // Let them start where I stopped. // Let them live where I died” (Sweet Smelling Sacrifice, verse 3, line 1, 2 & 3. Pg. 125).
Consequently, Fading Solfeggio is not very smooth though few lines are tangled up in imagery, yet some are harshly striking, but its aspiration cannot be doubted. In the collection, Okorie battles with global crisis, personal demons, and the survival of a poet into a chorus characterized by sleeplessness and panic. In a world where treble and artificial bass are collapsing and dying, the book insists that the old solfeggio does not die, although it flickers faintly, it stubbornly and tenaciously holds to life. This book is worth all the pages to those who are not afraid to be stampeded out of their comfort zone and those who are not afraid to bear witness to what is dying, the truth and flicker of fire among a conglomeration of sparks.
Fading Solfeggio sings of the death of an ancient Igbo flute, fading, dying, and yet rebellious. Uche Chidozie Okorie takes you to the broken place in your heart. One would imagine what happens when the old solfeggio fades completely? Where cultural strings break, and love cuts, and silence martyrs all the verses. Curiously, we keep watching the fading flames, we keep listening to the dying echo. This is no soft sigh, it is an analogy of wasted hopes, a feverish yell at the brink of extinction trying you before the last note fades away permanently. Will you listen to it… or allow it to go into extinct?
* Usaini Abubakar is an introvert, bibilophile, poet and writer, based in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria. He’s a sophomore majoring in Law at Bauchi State University, Gadau. His works have appeared in reviews, journals and magazines both national and international.
* Fading Solfeggio is available in amazon, selar, PabPub books and bookstores nationwide. Also available in Literary Dungeon website: www.literarydungeon.com
