At the Confessional
After Anthony Okpunor’s “Confession” By Charles Nnanna there’s a hole in this poem. a buried hole. each line is a seed in the quiet; cracking, desperate for daybreak: see a soul longing for a body, see a tongue toiling to…
contemporary nigerian poetry
My uncle explains why his knuckles are full of scars
By Ehiorobo Derek My body is a wild flower that only blooms at night. When the day comes, I rise with the sun, you see, I consider myself its student. I have always been given to combustion. Once, when I…
A body of water
By Abdulkareem Abdulkareem My bliss is a gun empty of bullets, teach me how to mould a body that won’t know the way to the middle of a river, how to sing a song that won’t pull my throat towards…
Redemption
By Eniola Abdulroqeeb Arówólò these syllables foaming in my mouth like bubbles resurrecting on the face of a lagoon are tasteless & ominous when requiems keep bursting out of me like unstoppable deluge. i filch a song from the mouth…
God as a metaphor for poet
By Muiz Opeyemi Ajayi In this poem I crack open a Quran for the first time in a long while. & in my stuttering recitation I envied God for his biting eloquence. The musicality of verses. Refrains of Duha. Shamsu.…
Contrition with Cowries & Blooms
By Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan Once again, May ends with my bare hands forgetting the gracious works they owe me; I who was forsaken to the mercy of April — a sinner who speaks nothing but apology, slivering the woodland in…
Tempest in Bódìjà, Ìbàdàn
By Flourish Joshua we woo the winds bullying brown roofs & hang them on baobabs to make gentle evenings for fables that tickle our buttocks to a dance. no one jumps into the river except the land is a knife.…
Four Haikus
By Ogedengbe Tolulope Impact Agodi garden sipping clouds from my coffee By the creeks of the Niger father’s gravestone . . . just before the sea Oduduwa’s land . . . the footprint of Oranmiyan stands high Osun river .…
Isimmiri
By Offor Emmanuel The silvery flow From atop the rocky sands Streaming, shining, like mermaid’s strands Isimmiri – harbinger of life Dwelling place for shrimps, crabs, toads, turtles, fishes Feeding the thirsty ferns and mosses The dark green trees and…
Monsoon With Òkè Ìdànrè
By Ayokunle Samuel Betiku Dulcet wind, sing of heights. We climb the long-drawn steps into rewards beyond the screaming feet, lift hands in rapture as if to pull gravity into surrender. It is the blue teeming with avian grandeur that…