We are pleased to announce the judges of the 2024 edition of NIGERIAN NEWSDIRECT CHAPBOOK AWARDS are 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…
2022 winner, NewsDirect Poetry Chapbook Prize, Michael Imossan, has been named winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry, 2024 for his full-length manuscript “All That Refuses to Die.” The African Poetry Book Fund, APBF, disclosed this on…
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 prioritise consistency of the award, and in so doing,…
By Nwodo Divine The rasp of a moth wing, caught between windowpane and the moon’s hard gaze. A silent question mark fluttering against the future, the shadow stretched before our eyes, but kept moving towards the bloom, petals heavy with…
By Samuel A. Betiku With Nigeria’s economy and poverty levels worsening, abductions have become an almost daily occurrence in recent years — Reuters Until now, you savoured the world in packets of myth, moon- lit frolic and a cot where…
By Kei Vough Korede In a dream, two bars of soap Were handed to me— One containing melancholy. The other, mirth. A voice instructed me to give The former to my father and keep The latter for myself. I broke…
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.…
By Alobu Emmanuel —after Saheed Sunday The day I realised the earth’s misery was when my keyboard’s auto-correct called me a poor earth instead of a poet. the earth is beautiful; so beautiful that mother nature should slice our hands…
By Kayode Ayobami say each line two times; one with your right ventricle and the other with the apex of your tongue. Give me the audacity to be beautiful in The face of chaos. Let my breath outpace The speed…
By Salami Alimot Temitope I sit on a stool in my room, beside the window, with the sun reflecting towards me, disguised as optimism. I am thinking about the direction of my life. Some day, obstinance steams my inside, making…
