By Flourish Joshua Faith Moyosore Agboola’s poetry has a raw, sensitive, and honest quality to it. There’s something remarkable about the way she writes lines that tell strong and moving stories while also being interwoven with multiple poetic devices. During…
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 prioritize consistency of the award, and in so doing,…
By Benard Okechukwu Nweke august rain. flood mooring a convoy of crania, exhuming the old open cemetery from the end of the river. i, transfixed to such neo-gymnasium as i ask a surveyor: which finger of topography revives forgotten wounds…
By Abdulrazaq Salihu At a lab in NASA, I sprawl my fingers On all the keys that could undo the deed Of misconception and miscalculation Like water does to dry land — revive its glory. My mistakes transpire from my…
By Fatihah Quadri Eniola There is no swathe that holds the slender back of hope, no truss to prehend its clavicles from break- opening. I bend the knee, seconds crash what ladders me to God. My grandma’s radio returning her…
By Inimfon Inyang-Kpanantia the truest poems start with forgiveness for the things I could have become — more when I needed to be vulnerable so I wouldn’t grow into stone. so you see there is no more flexibility in here,…
First runner-up, 2022 LIPFEST’s Poetry Slam, Christtie Jay in this conversation with Flourish Joshua discusses her forthcoming spoken word album, motivations, writing process, and what lies ahead. Why poetry? Because poetry is music. It’s soul food. It’s fluidity and freedom.…
By Blessing Omeiza Ojo At the IDP camp, where my kitten wouldn’t agree to sleep, I laid, missing my home, my mattress and sweet sleep. Mosquitoes wouldn’t quit the making of music in my ears. Afterward, they sucked me. It…
By Emmanuel Obadara and paint over them / with the brightest colours / known to man / but the pain will always be there — r.h. Sin fading into the ether like sea foam the wind weaves a thread of…
By Emmanuel Mgbabor you pull each nylon wing as you would unhinge a star from the sky’s dress. & for the first time, you watch a thing discolour in your palm. & i love you for this bravery, for the…
