Text by Tsitsi Ella Jaji

Queen Ufua’s Letter is an art song for soprano and piano composed for soprano Karen Slack and Kevin Miller, as part of Slack’s African Queen’s project. Poet Tsitsi Ella Jaji crafted the evocative text for the work, which takes the form of a letter written to my daughters, Eva and Corinne, from their great-great-great-grandmother, Queen Ufua of Esanland. Esan, my ancestral ethnic group, is generationally rooted in the central region of Edo State in Nigeria. The Esan language is intrinsically poetic. Everyday speech is permeated with metaphors, and Jaji’s text draws inspiration from four specific Esan proverbs:

Ose ba ni emiamhe¸n (Beauty is more painful than infirmity.)
Ese ii muin ede¸ (No amount of trouble can prevent daybreak.)
Ono ii mhon omon ii mhon oruan (The one who has no child cannot have an in-law.)
Aah ii gen omon bhi isira ole (Don’t sing praise of a child in his presence.)

Jaji subtly and with grace interweaves my family’s lineage to further amplify the tender and empowering message to my daughters. Ufua, the queen and the embodiment of “light” in the Esan language, was married to King Akhilomen, a name laden with “great responsibility.” My ancestral journey continues to unfold through their son Okhulun, whose name echoes the vastness of the “sky,” to his daughter, my grandmother, Ejaina, whose name aptly translates to “wherever I go is good.” Then comes my father, Fidelis, the first to bear a non-Esan name, meaning “faithful,” carrying our line forward to myself, granting me the Esan name, Ehireime, “gift from God.” And finally, we have my precious daughters: Eva—“life”—and Corinne, whose name encapsulates both “a beautiful maiden” and “spear.”

This letter, centered on life (Eva), beauty (Corinne), and light (Ufua), serves as a gift to my daughters: my desire to embolden them to cherish our rich ancestry, to never allow anyone to diminish their confidence and strength, to embrace resilience and grow in the face of adversity, to foster humility and discern true value, and to never forget the many mothers who have, and will, mold them into strong and flourishing women.

While this work is sweetly personal—dedicated to my daughters—it is my fervent hope that the affecting words of Jaji, brought to life through embodied performances by Karen Slack and Kevin Miller, as well as limitless other artists, will resonate with and deeply inspire many, as an expression of life, beauty, and inner light.

—Shawn Okpebholo