We are excited to reveal the gorgeous cover for Michael Imossan’s new chapbook The Smell of Absence. The chapbook will published in December as part of Kumi Na Moja: New-Generation African Poets, A Chapbook Box Set, a project of the African Poetry Book Fund with Akashic Books.

The artwork for the cover comes from Ethiopian artist Mulu Legesse, who is part of “a new generation of artists pushing the boundaries of art and exhibitions in Ethiopia.” The cover was designed by Sohrab Habibion and Aaron Petrovich at Akashic Books.

Liberian poet Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, author of the preface to the box set, praises the collection, saying:

The Smell of Absence is not just the recollections of a boyhood enmeshed in loss—loss of home, father, and everything a child needs to survive— but also a story shared across Africa and the world. An urgently necessary story.

From The Smell of Absence:

I hold your body for the last time before letting go, before laying it into the ground. I shovel the sands back. I water the closing with my tears.

from “Laying a stem to rest.”

Michael Imossan is an Ibibio poet from Nigeria. He is the author of an award-winning chapbook For the Love of Country and Memory and a pamphlet A Prelude to Caving. He is the 2024 winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry.

Enjoy the beautiful cover as you wait for the publication of the box set!