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Poetry Column
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. ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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, ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 / & ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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, ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
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 ...
Poetry Column
By Pamilerin Jacob Mid-February, I encountered a scholarly work that documents 50 women poets from 1985-2006. I mentioned this in my editorial note of the inaugural issue of EREMITE POETRY. I’d said: "…while working on an article for Poetry Column-NND, I stumbled upon this piece of scholarly work by Aderemi Raji-Oyelade and Remi Raji-Oyelade that ...
Poetry Column
For P By Ibe Obasiota Ben The love I’ve known is the love of / two people staring/ not at each other but in the same direction. — Frank Bidart I am a deserter. Somewhere, a man speaks to the stars, asks them to lead him to the place where love is birthed, the stars ...
Poetry Column
By Akpa Arinzechukwu I dip a finger in the deep ocean just to reach you. Your absence ebbs me towards the improbable. I wake up again in a body no longer mine, an identity on a reckless person’s table. The butcher, muscular than all my nightmares, hammers on the id first, the wings lastly – ...
Poetry Column
By Chiwenite Onyekwelu Because deep down all we want is to be split apart. Or do you not see it clearly enough— this mole on your flesh, tender as light & sinking through. It was never always so. The bodies in motion were once at peace. Your voice was your voice & this thirst, only ...
Poetry Column
for Chinyerem By Chibueze Obunadike “…thunder is a sudden noise that begins with light.” — Fernando Pessoa i don’t know if, when you close your eyes, you can still see it. all the way back to the beginning, your voice, like light, spilling into my life, that lazy summer evening, ...
Poetry Column
By Martins Deep [a] breathing became; i. an act of emptying a cage cluttered with birdsong that'll never find an ear to nest; ii. letting the wind sweep stars under carpet grass— stars polished with saltwater dripping from the horns of mama's prayer altar. [b] i hold this paper throbbing with a rainmaker's invocation to ...
Poetry Column
By Ola W. Halim (for all albinos battling skin cancer) i. my skin eats itself daily until all left of it is mincemeat ii. my skin is a sketch work of shiny reds, charred browns, pulpy whites, and fruity pinks a polka-dot bed of blood speckles: dead fleas stuck to glass maroon starlets strewn about ...
Poetry Column
—after Adam Zagajewski’s poem of the same title By Othuke My favourite poets are the folks planting trees cleaning up our dying lakes & rivers & oceans. The women & men marching, arm in arm on hot asphalt & chanting, No Justice, No Peace. The folks who register & wait patiently in a single file ...