Exiled
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…
poetry column
We Risk It All
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…
SCHEHERAZADE
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…
From a correspondence after suicide, 1984
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…
Melanoma
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…
My Favourite Poets
—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,…
JUDGES ANNOUNCEMENT: NIGERIAN NEWSDIRECT POETRY PRIZE 2020
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…
Appendages of Loss
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…
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: WEEKLY POETRY COLUMN
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…