Latest in
By Daniel Orisaeke On the shoreline, I watch the sun—a halved-cut lemon dip into the sea, language written in the dance of waves there is a pull and I succumb. The man beside me murmurs a few words about dying. Iniquities, like beads, jut out from my pores before hands drown me into a sea ...
By Wisdom Adediji Night nests upon the sky, and the moon, too shy, cowers behind my neighbour's roof. The rubbles left in silence's womb burst loose as the wind wrestle against the lineage of spine leaves holding my window pane from falling, from wedging off its wearily nailed calvary after years of unfulfilled promise to ...
The Sprinng Annual Poetry Contest is back, and this year, courtesy of Poetry Column-NND, three writers will each stand a chance to win N15,000 Cash and N10,000 gift cards to shop at Roving Heights. Timeline: The contest opens on March 1 and ends on June 30. The long-list will be announced on August 1, and ...
By Precious Okpechi there’s a kite testing how fast it needs to glideto halt a cloud in space; a light travelling acrossthe globe like saturn’s wedding ring; the small town below looks like a network of dendrites: a littlegreen here and there, pico-dust storms there andhere – i fear there isn’t any grief it can’t ...
By Agunbiade Kehinde Definitions belong to the definers — Toni Morrison Dawn is an open book for the hopes of travellers.They say by the time it breaks with its pitcher of boon,And the secrets of its rites of passage,Let them not be found wanting. I say amen. You say amen.This is the prayer of burdened ...
By Chinemerem Prince Nwankwo Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, / like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season. - Jb5.26 & bones once chiseled in youth, leaned toward a lingo. —how evening grasses tint in sunshine. ‘cause the weight of green bears them a deadline. life is ...
By Goodnews Karibo again I come to the place where I am inept at upending my fears. to sort each quaking bone for its smouldering nerves. before I take my body out into the open fields. before I listen closely for the origin of my grieving. before I put a finger to the heart of ...
By Osahon Oka Your hands shake the tray, the cup scatters its hypodermic needles of piercing light, liquid trembling around its rim & then, spill comes gently & sudden to its own impermanence: a puddle slowly closing its eyes. You let the incoming crash meet the sound the tiles have held in their womb, their ...
with a line from Gbenga Adesina By Taofeek "Aswagaawy" Ayeyemi Memory is the darkness in which we find our gone souls; history and heritage reminisced as culture, as headstones to crush our flowers. Father was a griot and death filled the missing gaps in his stories. Once I was massaging my limbs, and pitied I ...
By Chiagoziem Jideofor I miss home. I am old enough to have unleashed all sternness, wear out my leather skin. I am made of this dirt, mold a mother rejects. I’ve got guns, corked guns I am unwilling to show. I’ve got two huge arms that aren’t a joke. I’ve got a mouth set to ...
By Tares Oburumu After Nabagasera If I have sinned against my own body, then let grace shine on your self-preservation. Here’s the diurnal history of leaving, of the glory of airplanes jangling in the sky. Here’s the city, cobalt blue; the loneliness of snow listed on leaves of autumn. There, the young man and gay ...
In response to Billy Collins’ ‘The First Night’ By Chisom Okafor I am holding unto the past like a monochrome photographto my chest, listening to your heartbeat against mine in this untouched dark You say something about the pastnot holding water anymore,a forecast of hands, yours,held against the darkness. Let them go, you say. The secret ...
By Tope A Larayetan K’ene onye keni ye n’uwais how the weekend calls us in —how the neighbors tell usMommy would show up cradlingbrooms, packers, and mops.Her fingers buried in a plastic bowlof water waiting to wreakdroplets on our exposed skin. Akanchawais how Port Harcourt awakesfrom slumber: bright buckets climbon top of townspeople’s headsas they ...
By Ajibola Tolase In the doctor’s office wheremy symptoms dissipate at the newsof negative test results. I’m lookingat my tongue, colored orangeby Fanta in the mirror. Sinceit seemed I will live I shiftmy focus to things dying in me—English words I learnedin a different country whenI was five. Orange, I learnedwas a citrus before it’s ...
By Ugochukwu Damian Okpara here are my hands, lonely as they can be.i once asked a man to hold them & confesshis love for me. the man shy as my fatherheld them & didn’t know what else to do.i could mistake him for my father standingface-to-face with me, not smiling. once,he called to me in ...
By I.S. Jones I loved you when I was a childand so, my love for you was childish.For nine lifetimes, you’ve haunted my dreams. Nine lifetimes of finding me in the tender hoursthat hang low enough to touch.Which doesn’t help ease me to sleep. You marked in memory: lips—overwroughtof sweetness, mouth like a too worn,kicked-in ...
by tosin gbogi what does the sea bring back to me now what does it wash ashore in its nude song of crossing and what floats on its frothing face, butterflying with the tide . . . the light of the lighthouse is now gone and only the white of water casts its shadow on ...
By Animashaun Ameen R said my deepest flaw is wanting to save everything and, in reply, I let myself break down and asked him to save me. He didn’t. The whole world is on fire so this is the wrong time for me to say I miss my hands. R doesn’t know this. Nobody knows ...
By Olatunde Osinaike Getting to know him in the interim, and the gulf of prepositions describing the relative he has been to the two younger than me. Around, against, beyond, concerning, without, notwith- standing: all of the ways we have known him before. Rekindling affiliations the same as dreams to the minors we were. So ...
By Flourish Joshua Faith Moyosore Agboola's poetry has a raw, sensitive, and honest quality to it. There's something remarkable about the way she writes lines that tell strong and moving stories while also being interwoven with multiple poetic devices. During poetry performances, she has an eerie and spellbinding way of delivering her lines. It has ...
By Inimfon Inyang-Kpanantia the truest poems start with forgiveness for the things I could have become — more when I needed to be vulnerable so I wouldn't grow into stone. so you see there is no more flexibility in here, no brassbound band of muscle open to giving in. bye, body. my last batch of ...
By Blessing Omeiza Ojo At the IDP camp, where my kitten wouldn’t agree to sleep, I laid, missing my home, my mattress and sweet sleep. Mosquitoes wouldn’t quit the making of music in my ears. Afterward, they sucked me. It flew away; my sleep. Yet, they chased me everywhere, even outside the tent. What’s the ...
By Emmanuel Obadara and paint over them / with the brightest colours / known to man / but the pain will always be there — r.h. Sin fading into the ether like sea foam the wind weaves a thread of light from the rowing sap. cut sharp & urgent like an unwinding of a prayer. ...
By Emmanuel Mgbabor you pull each nylon wing as you would unhinge a star from the sky's dress. & for the first time, you watch a thing discolour in your palm. & i love you for this bravery, for the soft animal grazing beside your heart. i remember the night we swam the field of ...
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 prioritize consistency of the award, and in so doing, document the vibrant work being put out by contemporary Nigerian poets. The WINNERS of the NIGERIAN NEWSDIRECT CHAPBOOK AWARDS 2022 ...
