Osundare, Bingham-Risher, other leading poets hail Adedayo Agarau’s The Years of Blood
…He writes with exquisite sensitivity — Aracelis Girmay
…As Michael Aderibigbe dubs Stegner Fellow a “visionary”
Adedayo Agarau’s debut full-length poetry collection, The Years of Blood, has received high praise from respected voices in contemporary world literature.
Celebrated Nigerian poet Niyi Osundare described the collection as “a haunting horrorscape,” while acclaimed poets Remica Bingham-Risher, Aracelis Girmay, and Michael Aderibigbe have also lauded its raw emotional depth and fearless exploration of violence, loss, and memory.
The collection, which will be published by Fordham University Press on September 2, 2025, was selected by Elisabeth Frost and JoAnne McFarland for the Poetic Justice Institute Editor’s Prize for a BIPOC Writer.
Osundare, one of Africa’s most renowned literary figures, commended the book’s “chilling and surreal” quality, noting its masterful balance between intricate craftsmanship and harrowing subject matter.
“These poems refuse to turn away,” he said. “They achieve a stunning interplay of verbal density, formal innovation, and emotional depth.”
Osundare’s praise, in light of his own literary legacy in documenting Nigeria’s political and social struggles, underscores the significance of Agarau’s work.
The collection explores the horrors of ritual killings, child disappearances, and the lingering weight of political violence in Nigeria. Through fragmented language and dreamlike imagery, Agarau constructs a poetic world where absence and presence merge, capturing the grief of communities haunted by loss.
Poet and scholar Remica Bingham-Risher noted the collection’s ability to extract beauty from destruction, stating, “Evil is a question for God, and beauty emerges despite what politicians have ruined… Agarau shapes and sifts through shadow until light treads steadily home.”
Aracelis Girmay, author of the black maria, described Agarau’s poetry as “a history in which the personal and lyrical necessarily run through its marrow.” Michael Aderibigbe added to the praise, calling Agarau “a visionary… invested in bringing to mind the beauty and brutality of his community.”
The book’s cover, designed by Nigerian abstract photographer Ololade Olawale, visually embodies its themes of disappearance, grief, and remembrance. The ghostly figure draped in white against a sepia-toned backdrop mirrors the book’s meditation on memory’s fragile nature and the lasting weight of the past.
A Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, Agarau has previously published chapbooks Origin of Name (African Poetry Book Fund, 2020) and The Arrival of Rain (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020).
His growing recognition recently earned him a place in the 2025 Poets & Writers Get the Word Out Program, a prestigious initiative supporting emerging poets.
The Years of Blood is now available for pre-order and will officially be released on September 2, 2025. Pre-order here.
