poetry

Tag Archives: poetry

Features, Reviews 2018/10/29

#WeLoveBooks | Edwardsville by Heart by Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún

Reading poetry can sometimes feel like taking a journey through the sound and form of language. But when poetry itself becomes about travel, something magical happens. Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún’s debut poetry collection, titled Edwardsville By Heart, is just that: a magical meeting place of travelogue, memoir, and poetry. The poems are essentially travel stories crafted out of […]

Features, Lit Scene, News 2018/09/18

The 2018 Lagos International Poetry Festival Is Almost Here | How to Register

The 2018 Lagos International Poetry Festival, the showpiece’s fourth edition, will take place from 31 October to 4 November at Freedom Park, Lagos. Its theme, “Wide Awake,” will emphasize “the growing importance of vigilance in a post-truth era.” Founded in 2015 by performance poet Efe Paul Azino, author of For Broken Men Who Cross Often, the festival will feature […]

Megan Ross’ Milk Fever: An Intimate Meditation on Motherhood and the Female Body | Mapule Mohulatsi

“Nobody will ever get my milk no more except my own children. I never had to give it to nobody else—and the one time I did it was took from me—they held me down and took it. Milk that belonged to my baby . . . . I know what it is to be without […]

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Features, Stories and Poems, Submission 2018/06/19

Psalm 151 | Theresa Lola | Poetry

Theresa Lola is a poet of considerable achievement. A few months ago, she became a joint winner of the 2018 Brunel International African Poetry Prize. Her writing seeks out intimate spaces where pain but also beauty lies. On June 30th, she will perform at the 2018 Africa Writes Festival with the Octavia Poetry Collective. In […]

Sadness Is a Crowd | Tope Ogundare | Two Poems

The Shot each line on her face is a story of war, each crease tells of battles fought and lost, wounds brandished, hope taken captive. in her eyes sucked of tomorrow are orbs of dimmed light, its objects shadowy illusions. her mouth droops from the weight of sighs, from lamentations and dirges, from offering desperate […]

My Grandaddy Was a Gangsta | Gboyega Odubanjo | Two Poems

My Grandaddy Was a Gangsta his disciplining stick in one hand a bottle of Fanta in the other, my grandaddy was a gangsta. known from the west coast of Nigeria to North America cos he spread his seeds indiscriminate, like it was going out of fashion. tales say he descended from hills in gold chains […]

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Features, Stories and Poems, Submission 2017/08/30

Look | Amy Heydenrych | Poetry

Look how these men move through the earth, carelessly, eyes forward, shoved towards an urgent destination (though never feeling they have arrived). Look how closely the man stands his ground, hard-eyed, half-smiling, while the woman beneath him buckles, compromises, second-guesses her strength. In the most simple moments, the flow of the earth is revealed. Skip […]

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Features, Stories and Poems 2017/08/02

Body Parts | By Kechi Nomu | Poetry

In the ruins, I never account for the missing body parts. Never turn a body over. To do this is to count the dreams on a face. I always speak about the forms of darkness I carry into these rooms. I want to tell you always why a carnage of blood is the measurement […]