Latest in
By Muiz Opeyemi Ajayi In this poem I crack open a Quran for the first time in a long while. & in my stuttering recitation I envied God for his biting eloquence. The musicality of verses. Refrains of Duha. Shamsu. Ar-rahman resounding its anaphora into Fabi ayi Allahi rabbikumo tukazziban. At the moderasat, we perfect ...
By Blessing Omeiza Ojo I found myself in the garden behind our family house and began falling in love with the god in fruits. I would have fallen for the pretty girls on the street of a city in Nigeria or Singapore. Thinking of my loss, I had burnt a pot of stew and my ...
By Michael Imossan —after Nome Emeka Patrick My heart gravitates towards silence like a vowel moving towards destruction. Forgive me, assimilation is the process where life assumes the features of its antonym. At the expanse of the moon, I see a child's face, a calabash, a vulture, the breath of a roving tiger — but ...
By Divine Inyang Titus I wager, outside poems, a mother who falls into a ravine does not rebirth in a burst of angel wings. Her son does not seduce the rain with his tears or beam his glee when the thunder barks home his mother’s laughter. Ashes do not retain that beauty of dark metaphors. ...
By Nnadi Samuel glossy with aging, in that green conceited morning. rot terrifies me. fossil, barreling through my measured loin. I conserve light at the slightest crack of dawn, from things that pass for broken: my delicate mother. the thunderstick upshot high, where greening kites in rebellion. where if we must be virtuous; it must ...
By Shitta Faruq Adémólá Today, I awoke on God's lap. Tomorrow will be the festival of flying and yes, I will fly into the wind. Tell your mother I have just received a scar on my left ear- I am now permitted to morph into miracles. Tell her my tongue has lost the taste of ...
By Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí —my imagination can’t weave it up, language lays cold in my hand, a petalled pistol. nine years, seven months & twenty-four days of being motherless makes you unable to dream a world where you are somebody’s favourite song, their light, the flower buried in the chest of golden morn. I am ...
By Rahma O. Jimoh i hold this place with all of its blue waters, dazzling sunlight, tulips & bougainvillea— i transcend into water, curl around fleets of flowers. like a creek, unafraid, i pour into others & the sea mirrors the sky's vastness. beyond the shores, i see people being people; not a single white, black, yoruba, ...
By Georgie Your mother sprawls Like a petition left unanswered At an altar. You calculate if this pregnancy Outweighs her body— you imagine How it must be to lift something inside Other than yourself. You shake her fragile body Just enough to avoid a split As though it were your grandmother You tried waking back ...
By Chinedu Gospel For Mariam every time / my name escapes / from your windpipe / it’s as if I’ve been drowning / inside your air sacs / all my life / & you’ve been pushing me out / like carbon dioxide / how the clouds shove / the rain unto the earth / & ...
By Anthony Okpunor I think memories to keep the body. I write about the day as what endures the night. something about dreaming is a lie— the blue line above your head is a puzzle of not remembering. still, sometimes, the things I want out of this life are small; like a boat, made from ...
By Abu Bakr Sadiq I wake drunk on the smell of my kufi liquefying under sunlight I touch the sea under my eyes hoping to pick wishbones from its bed I watch a cat fight for its life as it gulps mouthfuls of mudwater in a pond & I do not know if I want ...
By Taiwo Hassan in this poem, fire wears the essence of its irony and i'm drowning. touch this skin, there's a home burning in each of its pores. make no mistake, these ashes are not meant to be unburnt, so let your hands wander carefully, there are no chances for healing in this land. today, ...
By Emmanuel Ojeikhodion an armistice fails to reconcile the war-zones of my body. there is a big war within that doesn't die. no one watches when I split like a burning house. nobody listens to the grief rattling my bones. even God sometimes goes into a deep slumber when I break. the suburb of my ...
By Omodero David Oghenekaro By the green River, I watched the Orange-breasted kingfisher plunge, beak-first for water, to perform the acrobatics of hunger. Show me a hunger that is not dangerous; show me a desire not taking The frame of a kingfisher spreading its wings at full-length—heavy with colors— to beak up the Little-bodied sound ...
By Fatima Ahmad Usman You are a lonely street at night holding death beneath the cover of black silence. Regret speaks not too loudly - indistinct her voice, still, she speaks. Remember when Halima told you "as a girl, To ply a lonely street at night is to place death at the entrance of your ...
after Romeo Oriogun By Elias Udòchi Andrevn pray in little spaces wild enough for a dream. & in deep sarcophagi of your body, stew remnants flush with heaven. god’s beard rove with burning crystals are the colors after which we are named. a name can be a vilification of colors. in this room primed with ...
We are delighted to announce the winners of our inaugural poetry prize: First Place (N70,000): Chidera Ihekereleome-Okorie - BLOOM Second Place (N50,000): Praise Osawaru - MONOLOGUE BEHIND A BOLTED DOOR, SOMEWHERE IN IKORODU Third Place (N30,000): Ọbáfẹ́mi Thanni - LET ME Finalists Chiemeziem Everest Udochukwu - A REPLY TO THE NEWEST EMAIL IN MY INBOX ...
By Akubudike Deborah i walk backwards on the snow: on you; take a handful of you: your reflection on my caramel skin; mold it into me, into my memories. i let that white skin, like white roses, pierce my monochrome eyes - red. from lapses of time, you shoot me an ellipsis, one ...
The process has been long and tedious, though fruitful. Thankful to the judges for their diligence & brilliance sorting through the hundreds of entries (total: 1132 submissions). We present to you, in no particular order, the longlist for Nigerian NewsDirect Poetry Prize 2020: Olowo Qudus Opeyemi - COMPLEXES Efe Ogufere – REFRACTION Aiyejinna Abraham Oshokunofa ...
By Ruona to be at the pinnacle's peak –no more bars to cross not one prayer to say even here is the world swirling chaotic around me and i am breathing the confusion settled around my neck to ruin a place –patch it back, and to preach the gospel of the kingdom cum ...
By Roseline Mgbodichinma I. In the chapel, the bell rings & the pendulum swings all into solemnity - the same way a mother's breast becomes hose and stills the clamour of a child, The only salvation I know is an umbilical cord holding life away from sin - till it is old enough to witness ...
By Haneefah Bello healing begins whenever you are ready - Ashley Davis honey, turmeric, chlorine & cloves. closed eyes, deep breaths, the cracking, then the counting: how many parts were you cleaved into? green bells ringing, limp shells bringing us back to bone from dust onto dust. like rust, rot, like the first clot ...
By Anointing Obuh This is how I remember my home downtown: Flowers fisting together like a child['s] hand, sprayed along the meagre journey From the patio to my room. The rain outside similar, to my mother's tired eyes in this painting, flowing estuary Citadel of pain. A daughter could sometimes flow into an estuary become ...
By Ejiro Elizabeth Edward I am earning loss as an inheritance Despair is a betrothal of life & death & my best friend is growing towards her extinction The doctor announces a new cell sprouting, coiling itself into her bone marrow like a snake on a branch hanging for its dear life, (even venomous things ...
