Adaobi Chiemelu’s “Purple Heart” is a poetry collection that explores love, longing, romance and self-discovery. It is an evocative and emotional collection that blends personal emotion with lyrical elegance. The poems in this book have strong three elements that make any form of writing great–vulnerability, emotion and imagery that paints vivid pictures of human connection.
The words, lines, verses and the poems are carefully crafted. Chiemelu, with simple and accessible language, invites readers into a world where affection is both intoxicating and introspective, where desire and romance are emphasised and love is explored in various shades.
From the opening lines of the collection, “Purple Heart” establishes itself as a reflection on the intensity of emotion. Literature is a mirror of life, Chiemelu mirrors a very interesting and often talked about aspect of life in this collection, but in a new way. The opening line, “Do you believe in love at first chat?” serves as a thematic anchor for the collection. It suggests what love means in the age of social media and the internet, reflecting the evolving yet familiar ways we approach love and romance today. This modern perspective also requires acts of courage. The poet portrays love not as a flawless ideal, but as a powerful force that can both uplift and hurt.
In the poem, bottle painting, the poet conveys her feelings in splendour: “i want to make a bottle painting of you, crack its head on a shadowed wall, lay my feet out on your see-through: shard out a mosaic, all as an excuse to violently love you.”
One of the things I admire in this collection is its strengths in the use of everyday imagery like the quoted line above to depict and express the persona’s profound emotional state. In sun-gazing, Chiemelu uses a simple act of observing the sky into a metaphor for shared intimacy. The persona finds commonality with a lover in their mutual appreciation of sunlight and clouds, an understated but powerful way to express emotional harmony. An imagery that I can well relate to myself. Similarly, in library, the poet equates love with the act of reading, suggesting that love can be discovered by deeply understanding another person’s love and choice of literature. She writes, “…where did you read up about the things i’d love for you to love and learn to love them?/ where did you get to study on how to make me happy?” These comparisons in the book highlight Chiemelu’s ability to infuse everyday moments with poetic significance, and her originality as a poet.
Another striking element of “Purple Heart” is in its use of indigenous language, Igbo, to add layers of cultural resonance. This is admirable in a time when indigenous languages are going into extinction. Words and phrases like “óse ọjị” and “ji na ázụ ńdụ̀ ofe nsala” make the poems even more rich with sensory details that transcend mere linguistic choice. These inclusions not only celebrate Igbo language but also reflect the intimate ways in which culture shapes love and identity.
Chiemelu also explores the complexities of romantic relationships, through the themes of uncertainty and unreciprocated feelings. In drizzle, the speaker reflects on a love that is not equally matched in intensity. The contrast between steady rainfall on one side and a mere drizzle on the other side serves as a metaphor for emotional imbalance. Similarly, the poem, conjuring questions about the nature of love—whether it is something that was organically formed or artificially imagined. These poems reveal a deep and introspective voice that does not shy away from the fears and doubts that come with matters of the heart.
“Purple Heart” is tender, and at the same time, lyrical, an exploration of the joys and struggles of love. Chiemelu’s language is intimate and electrifying; it captures how delicate the matters of connection and distance are. I enjoy how it blends personal reflection, cultural depth, and evocative imagery, which makes it a compelling read that is relatable for anyone. In the end, the poet leaves us with an understanding that love, in all its forms, requires bravery, vulnerability, risk—a willingness to hold, and perhaps to break, a purple heart.
