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 […]
Tag Archives: poetry
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
LISTEN 🎧 | Wana Udobang Features Titilope Sonuga in New Poetry Track Titled Open
We’re looking forward to the release of “In Memory of Forgetting,” Wana Udobang’s sophomore poetry album. When it comes, we know it’ll be soulful and beautiful. She revealed, on her website, that “the work navigates trauma, loss and self-renewal.” Here is a little something to tide us over until the album arrives. It’s a poem titled […]
What It Means to Grow Up without You | By Funge-owei Michael Nemine | Poetry
I was bare, assailable, groping For your wings to run over me And lace me with warmth. But you never came. The night showed me your shadow, Weeping and groping around my wall. The wind brought you through the window And you hovered around the little lamp And ran the shadows of your fingers over […]
Portrait of Us as Snow White | Two Poems by Theresa Lola
Portrait of Us as Snow White We inherited black holes for eyes, so light was the benchmark we measured the beauty of skin against. We sat in our dorm room and discussed who the fairest of all was. The Igbo girls claimed they could be cast as foreign as long as the sun […]
#LetRomeoBreathe: How Young Nigerian Writers Pushed Back against Violent Homophobia
It began hours after the Brunel Prize was awarded to Romeo Oriogun on 2 May. Amidst the explosion of cheers, certain posts began to surface. On a few personal blogs. On social media. They all had the same tone, of suspicion, of irritation, of desperation, of anger. Word spreading was this: Someone had won an […]
I hold a doctorate in English from Duke University and recently joined the Marquette University English faculty as an Assistant Professor. I love teaching African fiction and contemporary British novels. Brittle Paper is the virtual space/station where I play and experiment with ideas on how to reinvent African fiction and literary culture.
