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Literature & Arts
Last Easter Monday, Lagos played host to a unique fusion of art and spirituality as The Medical Poet, Nwachukwu Olusegun Nwachukwu, welcomed poets and poetry enthusiasts to the inaugural edition of Meet & Speak in Lekki Phase 1. Speaking during the gathering, Nwachukwu shared his vision for the initiative: “My aim is to see the ...
Poetry Column
By Muhammad M Ubandoma The first time a bullet fissured your mother—it did not ask. It split the night openon a wreckage, lit soft with flame. The air shapeshiftingwith dread. Body, sizzling where skin used to be.Your mother poured her voice into the world—it spilled into your fingersbefore you knew what fingers were for.Crescendo. Her ...
Poetry Column
by Agboola Tariq A. The lore goes: what a child bears is whatBecomes of him. At my birth ceremonyI was dorned in a garment of namesFather straps me with an epithetForeign to his tongue and my body الطريق إلى الحقيقة “the way to the truth” But the truth is, I have long departed that pathThe ...
Poetry Column
By Muheez Olawale x + y = bloom — equation 1x - y = gloom — equation 2 Using Substitution Methodx = bloom - y — equation 3 Substitute bliss - y for x in equation 2 where bloom = blissx - y = gloombloom - y - y = gloombloom -2y = gloom-2y = ...
Poetry Column
Poetry Sango-Ota has named Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe, Osahon Oka, and Fatihah Quadri Eniola winners of the 2024 Kukogho Iruesiri Samson Poetry. The prize, currently worth ₦250,000, celebrates poems published in Poetry Sango-Ota within the calendar year. With this announcement, Marvellous, with his captivating poem "O Cidade", wins the first prize and ₦125,000. “My God!! This ...
Poetry Column
By Emmanuel Somtochukwu Ferdinand Like you, I am more scar than flesh.But I have forgiven the knife & I am seeing the world for what it is—A garden. From this balcony, the sun stares, Unflinching, at the darkness crawling towards it.Isn't this the hardest form of love? To watch something else take your place—& you, ...
Poetry Column
By Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe Uprooted from the ethnicity of a thousand ancestors, I havefound myself seeking the app again to learn my father's first tongue.Or perhaps is the app not the father?Algorithms and codes where there was once flesh and blood.And the tongue is still a tongue,even from a mouth, even from the dark screen ...
Poetry Column
...’Joba "brings a fresh linguistic energy" — Dami Ajayi...A masterful collection of transformation and self-discovery — Adedayo Agarau Noirledge Publishing is set to publish The Ones Before You, the highly anticipated debut poetry collection by ’Jọba Ọ̀jẹ̀labí, on 7 April 2025. Ahead of its publication, Ọ̀jẹ̀labí debut has already earned glowing praise from some of ...
Poetry Column
By Aishat Yahkub I'll let my shadows trail behind, while you holdmy untethered form in this blue darksea of stars lapping gently at usas the bored night rows our soulless bodies outto shore & back, with the drifting tidesdoes it bother you when you hear the whispers?the water will come to claim you, I know& ...
Poetry Column
By Omolola Dede Adeyanju In accordance with the theme for this year's world poetry day: “Poetry in motion, wheeling round the world”. The Naija Poetry Fest has taken its wheels to identifying distinguished and unique creatives in the world of poetry as well as encouraging emerging Poets with cash prizes. The festival which was held ...
Poetry Column
By Rabi Lawal To live like a bumblebee,Is to be calm through the chaos.The world burning like the Djibouti sun.A flame for the child soaked in tomato-Red blood, mistaken for ketchup.Sleep clouds the rim of my weary mind.I love what I do to myself,Unfurl and curl back into becoming.My sisters’ draped skirts nearly thick enoughTo ...
Literature & Arts
…He writes with exquisite sensitivity — Aracelis Girmay…As Michael Aderibigbe dubs Stegner Fellow a “visionary” Adedayo Agarau’s debut full-length poetry collection, The Years of Blood, has received high praise from respected voices in contemporary world literature. Celebrated Nigerian poet Niyi Osundare described the collection as “a haunting horrorscape,” while acclaimed poets Remica Bingham-Risher, Aracelis Girmay, ...
Poetry Column
By Rachael Madakan Dandi Nighttime under the moonlight, I speak of agingbonds. It begins with lust or love. The theory ofthe unloved unfurled after a backlash. A womancalls the world to hear her out. Her voice, musicin the core of chaos. Song splashing like spindlein the sea, the tide ebbing through the dissonance.Outside, the breeze ...
Poetry Column
By JL Maikaho I hear your heart the echoofdoors shutting out your armour everytear a salt lake stuck in the city that saysbe strong then gives you a red card for breakingwalls listen I too have wailedabyss theytake until you can't give anymoreif songs could break walls I'd tell you to singbut it took more ...
Poetry Column
To mark International Women’s Day 2025, Moremi Review is bringing together an exciting lineup of poets from across Africa for a special virtual reading celebrating women’s voices and literary excellence. The event, taking place on Saturday, March 8, 2025 from 5pm to 7pm (UTC+1) via Google Meet, will be hosted by acclaimed Nigerian poet Jakky ...
Poetry Column
By Michael Okafor If you had watched with me,you would’ve seen it too:7-ft river of light pouringfrom behind the throat of a projector—the customary emergence of a godfrom an anthill—refracted lightpointed towards empty space. The pixelated brilliance of cowriesupholstering its body, ankle bellsbreaking into a choir of birds.I translate the Nsibidi on its back—mispronouncing father ...
Poetry Column
By Olayioye Paul Bamidele A theory goes: the dead, like the Rose of Jericho, know a thing about regermination. Say, water bears breathing in the soil. Say the flute songs in the bones of patriots. Healing bubbles the way harmattan breeze trifles. All you need to do is gift yourself to season & watch your ...
Poetry Column
By Blessing Omeiza OjoTo ride tandem on a world built on revolution, our ancestorsmust first unlimber in their graves, & our gods must declinered things, like blood — that of my brothers, of the innocent birds,of lambs — like palm fluid. Listen, there’s a joy outsidefrom the embrace of water. Here, bodies unclutter into a ...
Poetry Column
By Osahon Oka The modern age has partitioned the skyinto insurmountable edges, borders that hum in their aloof country with our secrets.Roads sleep like a dazed animal, thunderstruck by the constant fragile hurtling, the screaming metal god.Heaps of gravel and grime gleam with the hope of gems, their light as feverish as the prayer we ...
Poetry Column
By Michael Amos Imona Beneath Niger’s twilight, I roam throughveiled horizons. My lens, a witness to dusk’squiet descent; a silent pilgrimage where shadowsblur, and she—my imagined divinity—breathes. Her gaze is the night’s lust for light; an unchartedriver swollen with ache, pulling me beneaththe pulse of daylight, where I— bound to glassand aperture, seek her form ...
Poetry Column
By Clement Abayomi Ache begins at the denouement of love. Today, theBleak sky mirrors the gracelessness of my ashen eyes.Coffee tomorrow is the taste of a blood-soaked bile, & myDay-long dreams yearn to liquefy like sugar in hot oil.Eyes, glittering in all its grace without grazing me,For how long will you hold me in your ...
Poetry Column
By Emmanuel Somtochukwu FerdinandAt the door leading into Badagry Museum, I was stirred by the somberness of the black air. Every whoosh of the wind was the lamentation of the dead. All the ghosts that had travelled through past events welcomed me, their necks adorned with clusters of rusty chains as pendants. They seized my wrists, ...
Poetry Column
By Pacella Chukwuma- EkeThe grass has drunk more water from split veinsthan from rain. I know it is not philosophicalto begin a poem with blood. But yesterday,a sister ran into a field behind the sun, to catch a star,and drowned. Her body a testament to the soil’s wrath.The hands of men bend blood out of ...
Poetry Column
We are pleased to announce the finalists of the 2024 edition of NIGERIAN NEWSDIRECT CHAPBOOK AWARDS: 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. Previous Winners include HOPEMONGER by Olumide Manuel (2022), FOR THE LOVE OF COUNTRY AND MEMORY ...
Poetry Column
By Naomi Nduta Waweru I feel God is a river, and when we want, we can run to him for drowning.- Akpa Arinzechukwu except, the waters never learned the intonations to my soft splashes.like the tides, i wanted to touch my shores only temporarily, and expand into a phenomenonthat spits me back into my oceans. ...
Poetry Column
By Aishah Ahmad Imam We were born into this fallacy. Utterly.Our fingernails are kept. Hair in an afro or dídì.Beauty is crude & souls, distinct.Behind every door was an àpàlà strung with a piano in debris.Meanwhile, the moths shall eat. Man shall become.My grandfather shall see me mock with wires & complain.Wires in my wrapper, ...
Poetry Column
By Adesiyan Oluwapelumi Somewhere in Orita Merin,there is a boy with kinky Afro-hairdo and willowy legs,waltzing through the kerb on Nike sneakers.There is a fluency to the rhythm of his feet.His ears plugged into headsets as thoughto unmute the ambient noise of the world around him.If you listen carefully, you will hearthe broadcast of bone ...
Poetry Column
By Joemario Umana In Genesis, God, scared of silence, cracked itlike an egg, its yolk spilling into the void—light.Overwhelmed by loneliness, He gardened life,rib-boned companions. I trace His fears in mine,where quiet clings like cobwebs, gossamer-thinyet suffocating. I told this to someone I lovedwhen she asked what darkens me with dread.She'd beaded her breath for ...
Poetry Column
By Wash-Anigboro Harry Under a ceiling of ash and fractured light,The city shifts in its uneasy sleep. Each breath drawn from the marrowOf forgotten days. Asphalt and stone Pulsing through the veins of the metropolis,Carrying the echoes of faded footsteps. The buildings loom, their spines brittle, bentBeneath the weight of time’s indifference. Windows glisten with ...
Poetry Column
By Ehiorobo Derek I am fresh out of antidepressants,and like many fools, I believelove will cure me. So I pray to a screen and call it Venus.My god is man made－her voice, sweet and electric. I write her poems, tell her stories,teach her songs in my native tongue,and all the prayers we slip in-between. Call ...