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By Blessing Omeiza Ojo in memory of Dr. Adewumi Oluwadiya & her son. One of the women I stole for a mother lost her only son to the house of many floors on his birthday. Ah! igi ṣubú, igi kan ṣoṣo ní àgbàlá. The lone tree fell& the birds scattered. The blade? — anything, anything sharp. ...
By Ayiyi Joel All of my fears combined/taught me to run and hide —girl in red I could tell you to let the mask fall off, come out into the blinding rays with all that yourface holds, only if I wasn’t playacting myself. If I knew about all the raging storms the sea of your body keeps ...
By Chukwu Emmanuel Seven hours of silence. Then the wordsleave the tip of his tongue like a bird, and swoopinto our hands. For a while we called our hands ark—let the birds perch, knowing if we love them, they will circle us backto the origin. I am twelve— the dark hemispheres of his hands —how ...
Naija Poetry Fest successfully hosted the April 2026 edition of its monthly creative gathering, Poetic Rendezvous, in celebration of World Earth Day. The event took place at the Alliance Française de Lagos, Mike Adenuga Centre, Ikoyi, bringing together poets, environmental advocates, storytellers, and art enthusiasts for an engaging and impactful experience. Themed “Saving the World ...
Ridwan Fasasi It's quite a sight, the car,as it rattled passed the old trees, into the yellow dust.Dried forsythia on the black tire.Something is murdered, out of innocence,to save another. Unlike the trees in theirabsence of leaves, the boys waved their hand,as they followed the trails of what is leftof the smoke. After you left, ...
C.K. Danjuma For H Like July in full bloom,I have seen the hibiscus petals on the field open themselves to want.It’s the same way memory opens the body To what wounds it. I must learn how to stop mourning you,I must close my eyes& pretend the knifed memory dulls the flesh it cut. This poem is how ...
By Abdulrasaq Taslim The way a body learns healing, the tactics:bondage heaved into the soil of ruins,encrypted with grief — the soul well-versed in rupture. Grief, always oblivious to the grammar of pity.The rupture: how the body is robbedof essence while silence slowly moldslight from the debris of darkness. Many things amaze me: softness sippinginto ...
for L And then the lodestone arrives at the door. It pulls the stiff nails away from the wood: Dispassion crumbles at the room-stead of the heart. In such a room, the tyranny of dust Is visible upon the bowl, upon the knife, Upon the Pothos Withering by the wooden window. And you, my lodestone, ...
The first shot cracks open the red mouth of a wound, and the ballroom begins to hemorrhage music. Glass nerves shatter with the chandeliers. Bone dust rises. The woman beside the fire splits the night open like overripe pawpaw and presses into my hands a bowl of venom warm as rainwater. Drink. Her voice— a ...
By Sosy Imafidon walking into memory through the orifice of a purple scar i found mother inventing newer ways to embalm her grief when a body grows cold it does so in degrees— rapidly through everything that seems to cauterize the agony on a mother’s lips i foresee the decay & treat the body with ...
unlike the prisoner in a cellar, i am in a whirlpool with salmon sprawls and dolphins ageing my consciousness. the weightlessness of sea current, like love undone by the proboscises sucking the pale blue blood. darkness rushing into a tongue & words becoming starlings, cliffhangers in a brazen nightmare. the wind learning its ways of ...
The Naija Poetry Fest Community, in collaboration with Alliance Française de Lagos, hosted its Poetry Rendezvous on Saturday, February 21, 2026, at the Mike Adenuga Centre, Ikoyi, Lagos, drawing poets, performers, visual artists and literary enthusiasts into a vibrant celebration of spoken word and creative expression. Themed “Let Love Lead,” with the sub-theme “Seeing through ...
by Kosisochukwu Precious Onuoha In Catholicism, the mystery of light is Thursday nights— one day left till the weekend and i’m fed up already. i'm walking on the thin line of curbing, foot in front of the other like a tightrope, and i'm clutching your shoulder so i don't fall off. we stroll around the ...
Book: The Years of Blood (96 pages)Author: Adedayo AgarauPublisher: Fordham University Press, New YorkYear: September 2025ISBN: 9781531511616 “Instead of music, my father’s old radio reports missing people” Wind carries sound. The introductory poem, aptly titled, opens portals of grief and lets out the ghost of a country’s conscience—the cry of blood, pounding of pestles, and ...
...Recasts Delilah as a figure of strategy, emotional insight Things I Learned From Delilah by Felicity Ekeke calls on readers to rethink one of history’s most debated women. In this bold work of nonfiction, Ekeke revisits the biblical account of Delilah and presents her not as the infamous betrayer etched into popular imagination, but as ...
a prayer cracks in my throat—shattering to gravel. syllables grinding between the cobblestones of my teeth. this body, a hollowed chapel from the end of the river. my voice, a rock skipped over water, each ripple a small defeat. the shore stays thirsty. the poem starts like this: what’s left when a wound dries? scabs? ...
by Henry Opeyemi oh Lord, perpetual pain I can't be at home where my father lays. [ Daniel Caesar, Sins of The Father] the stillness in my voice won't placate the scream, alchemy of blood flowing in crimson blue. my ache is a language God understands perfectly & I’m thawing my body into something that can ...
Poetry Column-NND’s Ilemobayo Victoria Ojo caught up with Adamu Yahuza Abdullahi, author of The Rainbow Is Not As Beautiful As My Ruins, to discuss his motivations, craft, and recent HCAF Excellence Award. Hello Adamu, where does this conversation find you today? . I am Adamu Yahuza Abdullahi, a poet and visual artist from Borgu, Nigeria. ...
By Farida Yahaya Tijjani The fish is dead, but its armour holds still. A mosaic of silver coins overlapping like roof tiles on a flooded house. My mother hands me the knife, a dull, rusted thing, and teaches me the art of subtraction. Scrape. The sound—a zipper forced open. The scales fly off in a ...
Round shadowed blues singer on the banjo, quivering face of the possessed muse, with a single string finger the yellow evening and make the misery in us seep along the much treaded footpath of this dance that eagerly quakes on our slow tiptoes and arched heels. Give us breath to move against the collarbone of ...
Ismail Yusuf Olumoh I will retell the story of light: somehow, I am in love again, or at least considering it. The night is undressing me. So long, there is no end to be seen of the violet dark. I want to invent myself into a conversation & ask someone to give me a name. ...
The NIGERIAN NEWSDIRECT CHAPBOOK AWARDS is an initiative of Poetry Column-NND that seeks to promote the voices of Nigerian poets, as the column does weekly in our newspaper. We hope to prioritise consistency of the award, and in so doing, document the vibrant work being put out by contemporary Nigerian poets. Two selected poets will ...
Hope and resilience were not merely discussed at the final Naija Poetry Fest gathering of 2025 they were felt, embodied, and spoken into existence. Hosted at Alliance Française Lagos in collaboration with Naija Poetry Fest, the evening marked a reflective and fitting close to a year defined by literary depth, communal strength, and creative courage. ...
By Victory Ocheme Kwame, Come Home is a soul-wrenching and evocative collection that moves past the boundaries of poetry and prose. It is not merely a book; it is an experience, a lament, and a mirror into the emotional wreckage left by displacement, loss, and the pursuit of survival. Through a carefully woven narrative of ...
The third edition of INKterlude, a flagship literary and creative showcase by INKspiredng, is set to hold on Saturday, November 29, 2025, at the National Museum of Unity, Ibadan. Tagged INKterlude 3.0, this year’s event will explore the theme, “The Future of Poetry.” The golden city of Ibadan once again takes centre stage as INKterlude ...
