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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 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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 – ...
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 ...
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, ...
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 ...
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 ...
—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 ...
So far, we have received over 480 unique entries and are gearing up to the next phase. For the inaugural prize, we are excited to announce that the judges are Servio Gbadamosi and Oyindamola Shoola. Two poets, who in time past, have been featured in our Poetry Column. Poet and publisher, Servio Gbadamosi, is a ...
By Njoku Nonso I do not trust my hands to keep me alive. I chapel my hands towards atonement, a white stallion limping across the garden of beauty. What's hungered in the dark remains imperishable, ungodly, persuasive like a naked wire drawn out of an open eye, sailor's hands over a hairball of insomniac vines ...
Nigerian NewsDirect will be open to poetry submissions for its Poetry Column-NND beginning January 2021. We hope to publish one poem per week in our newspaper by Nigerian poets & are open to a diversity of voices—established & emerging. Check out our website for older publications to have an idea of what we publish. We ...
By Pèlúmi Sàlàkọ́ On the 18th of August, 1977, over 1000 soldiers gathered at Kalakuta, Fela’s abode. They burnt his house & musical instruments, assaulted his family, and threw his mother to her death. The music cannot be handcuffedso they try to snuff its conduit. We were all here in the open, watching,when men in ...
