Book of the Week – Too Small For Meat by Barnabas I. Adeleke

Barnabas I. Adeleke’s Too Small For Meat carries the unmistakable imprint of place. Adeleke, a Nigerian poet and photographer, writes from landscapes shaped by heat, prayer, insects, labour, and communal life. The chapbook, published in 2018 and accompanied by the poet’s own photographs, offers scenes that are rooted in attentiveness to Nigeria.

Elaine Andre, in her foreword, speaks of “a voice rising in Africa” and notes how Adeleke’s poems move beyond seasonal convention into a lived sense of environment and survival. That observation proves true throughout the collection.

The title poem announces the book’s ethical pulse:

too small for meat . . .
the jogger leaves a snail
to cross the path

The poem rests on restraint. In many parts of the world, a snail is barely noticed. Here, it carries the possibility of food. The jogger’s decision acquires moral weight precisely because it is small. Mercy is not proclaimed.

Elsewhere, Adeleke records precarity with startling economy:

autumn floods . . .
the emergency shelter
ankle deep

The final line shifts the poem from refuge to irony. Shelter exists, but inadequately. There is no outrage in the language, yet the image lingers because of what it refuses to embellish.

Faith appears repeatedly in the collection as a lived rhythm:

lightning and thunder —
a prayer vigil stretches
beyond dawn

The storm and the vigil occupy equal space. Prayer is not presented as escape from circumstance but as endurance within it. Time lengthens through devotion.

Adeleke is equally alert to humour and social observation:

almost
saluting a mannequin . . .
Christmas fair

The near-mistake humanises the speaker. We recognise the reflex before we analyse it. The poem smiles at our habits without cruelty.

Perhaps one of the most affecting poems in the book is this:

mother shifts her chair
towards the scent of jasmine . . .
moonlit garden

The movement is slight, but emotionally expansive. We are not told the mother’s age, her condition, or her thoughts. The turning of the chair becomes enough. Fragrance, memory, and companionship gather around the gesture.

The photographs threaded through the chapbook deepen this atmosphere. Dragonflies, leaves, flowers, snails, and insects appear as extensions of the poems themselves. The opening dragonfly and later close studies of plants and rain-washed surfaces create a visual continuity with the haiku.

Reading Too Small For Meat, one notices how often Adeleke writes at the meeting point of tenderness and scarcity. Hunger, devotion, humour, and beauty coexist without cancelling one another.

As you read, pause for a moment and ask yourself which poem remains with you longest. Is it the one shaped by compassion, by hardship, or by recognition of something familiar in an unfamiliar place?

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You can read the entire collection in the THF Digital Library .

And a small reminder for our readers. The THF Digital Library can now be found more easily through the carousel on the home page, making browsing and discovering collections a little simpler.

Do you have a full or chapbook length book published in 2021 or earlier that you would like featured as a Book of the Week? Contact us for details. Haiku featured in the Book of the Week Archive are selected by the THF Digital Librarian Vidya Premkumar and are used with permission.