Chibụìhè Achịmbà’s poetry chapbook, hallowed, is now available. Published by Damaged Goods Press, the 30-page work, which is not described on the website, comes with blurbs by Romeo Oriogun, author of The Origin of Butterflies, winner of the Brunel Prize, and co-founder of Kabaka; JK Anowe, author of the forthcoming Sky Raining Fists, winner of the inaugural Brittle Paper Award for Poetry, and chapbook editor at Praxis; Chimezie Chika; and Logan February, author of Painted Blue with Salt Water.

Here is what they said about the chapbook:

Romeo Oriogun:

“In hallowed, Chibụìhè Achịmbà has carved out poems that are vulnerable and speak to the Queer experience in Nigeria. His voice is necessary and needed because like his poems, it is a thing of beauty, one that we need to remind us of the beauty that exists outside the ugliness of the struggle.”

JK Anowe:

“the pain & potency of trauma in Achịmbà’s poems are delivered with a language so immediate, so intimate, they’re filled with an inheritance almost hereditary.”

Chimezie Chika:

“To read Chibụìhè Achịmbà’s hallowed is to see and to live through the pain of fragmentation and the anxiety of identity. Each poem in the collection is a feast of wondrous, elegant imageries. Written in language so pure and searing, this is a humane testament to the human predicament, the will to live, and to exist on one’s own terms.”

Logan February:

“It is such a gift to witness the work of such a wondrous poet as Chibụìhè Achịmbá, who presses into grief until it sings. hallowed brings tenderness and painful precision to the internal and external worlds of violence visited upon queer bodies—one poem declares: “i have a wound i call a country.” Yet, guilt is unfamiliar to the speaker, who loves and hurts for the sake of love. The voice brims with desire, and echoes long after you put down this book. Achịmbá writes: “lord i was something before you emptied me of language,” but these stunning poems are a masterwork of language.”

Chibụìhè Achịmbà is a poet, prose writer, and photographer. He is a co-founder of Kabaka, a magazine created to amplify queer voices in African literature. His essay, “We’re Queer, We’re Here,” received the inaugural Brittle Paper Anniversary Award.

hallowed can be bought on Damaged Goods Press’ website for $10.

Brittle Paper congratulates Chibụìhè Achịmbà.