Reviewing Four Short UDP Titles #3: Boys Quarter by Chukwuma Ndulue

What the world needs
now are more clover bees
and stings, delicious stings.

Boys Quarter is a fantastic collection of poems by, for, and about the center of self that is the poet. It is a book that has fantastic implications on the daily life of the 21st century writer, the 21st century person, the 21st century social being. Chukwuma Ndulue provides nothing short of the ecstatic experience that is his daily life, and the mementos and curios that make up the images and contexts of these poems are extraordinarily honest. They reverberate with an honesty that is thorough, albeit at times disagreeable through Ndulue's own, humble privacies. But that quality of the deeply personal becomes, when collected and conformed to a book, a satisfaction of self, authenticity, and autonomy. Ndulue reinforces what he knows through life with what he knows through thought, synthesis, and a general brilliance towards a critical existence. The sense of the ugliness and most monstrous qualities of the world are regularly poked, jabbed, and also represented through the multitudinous voices that emerge (only to erupt) from poem to poem. A certain and exquisite ambiguity, the like of most poetry, faithfully serves the reader in supporting the construction of a dreamy, disconnected universe of consumption, love, and reconciliation. Boys Quarter, being imbued with a genuine, far-reaching attempt to showcase life as life, succeeds wonderfully in its world-building, and Ndulue intelligently captivates wholly throughout the book’s short duration.

Boys Quarter by Chukwuma Ndulue was published by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2017.