Sprout
By Ejiro Elizabeth Edward I am earning loss as an inheritance Despair is a betrothal of life & death & my best friend is growing towards her extinction The doctor announces a new cell sprouting, coiling itself into her bone…
contemporary nigerian poetry
CONTEMPORARY NIGERIAN POETRY: 30 NIGERIAN WOMEN POETS YOU SHOULD BE READING THIS MARCH
By Pamilerin Jacob Mid-February, I encountered a scholarly work that documents 50 women poets from 1985-2006. I mentioned this in my editorial note of the inaugural issue of EREMITE POETRY. I’d said: “…while working on an article for Poetry Column-NND,…
Jakky Bankong-Obi: Guest Editor for Women’s History Month
This March, in commemoration of Women’s History Month, we will be publishing only women. And we are happy to announce Jakky Bankong-Obi as the guest editor for the month! Jakky’s poem, Braven, has been previously published by Poetry Column-NND. She is…
Homecoming
For P By Ibe Obasiota Ben The love I’ve known is the love of / two people staring/ not at each other but in the same direction. — Frank Bidart I am a deserter. Somewhere, a man speaks to the…
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…
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,…