Akpata Magazine

Tag: contemporary-nigerian-poets

  • Shore-gazing – Praise Osawaru

    I am on the shore, pretending to listen to the water’s music
    with my lover. there’s no harm in knitting thoughts to comfort

    one’s self from the chill of loneliness. the body can only acco-
    mmodate absence so long before it collapses, pillars succumbing

    to a windstorm. I wish to understand how a body dissolves into
    another at the wand of love. how another’s arm becomes a safe

    house one can run into, away from the insanity of living. before
    the day began, a friend texted, saying God must have mistaken 

    quicksand for rock when he set my feet upon the ground. 
    him & I are both photographs on the wall in a room

    dead dark, yet I say everything lost will come alive with the sun
    & he embraces it as a prayer. what hasn’t eluded any of us?

    ask the hen what it dreams of, and it will tell you winging the sky,
    like a bird. this is how we carry on as everything becomes sour

    & half-dead, even us. still on the shore, I fall backward onto 
    the sand & caress my shoulders, a plain attempt at relief. 

    I pretend I’m not a hollow in the well, a music box
    without a song, a tulip blooming in the meadow of longing.

    Praise Osawaru (he/him) is a writer of Bini descent. A Best of the Net, Pushcart Prize, and Nina Riggs Poetry Award nominee; his work appears in Agbowó, FIYAH, Frontier Poetry, Down River Road, The Maine Review, 20.35 Africa, and Uncanny Magazine, among others. He’s the first-place winner of the 2021 Valiant Scribe Poetry Prize. He’s a Contributing Poetry Editor for Barren Magazine and an Associate Prose Editor for Chestnut Review. Find him on Instagram & X @wordsmithpraise.

  • How to Tell My Body I Love You – JoeMario Umana

    after Georgia Ifunaya’s Self-Love 

    running water
    from the shower
    becomes hands
    & crawl my skin
    like cover crops over soil, 
    planting a million pimples 
    on my body—a land fertile
    with want. 
    I slide into the tunnel
    of my left palm’s index
    and thumb, 
    slippery like okra’s draw
    made from soap and water. 
    this is how I tell my body
    I love you, 
    a fellowship with eyes closed, 
    desire popped up
    like opened picture 
    on phone’s gallery, 
    and breath caught
    with body trembling
    —a flesh quake, 
    the world dead. 
    then an exodus of self
    —a coming out. 
    and surrendering
    into guilt’s arms
    feeling all filthy and sinful
    remembering what the pastor says
    about my love and a fire
    that never sleeps
    and will never turn
    my body
    to black powder
    but offer
    an everlasting pain, 
    the water
    from the shower
    washes it all away
    along skin, 
    semen and soap lather.

  • Osholonge – Onoberhie Janet Ojevwe

    A street divided by both the doers and the saints
    A street divided by the houses: dilapidated and well structured 
    Divided by different tongues, practices and beliefs
    Time to time, blue and red sirens come visiting 
    With full force, taking into captivity the doers and the saints.
    Fearful mothers shout at their Saint sons “Go inside”
    For fear of the blue and red sirens.
    The saints, the opposite of the doers, carry their head 
    High up and with scornful looks reserved for the doers.
    The saints – the pen and book of the street and 
    The doers – worshippers of the night
    For it is the only time they can fees
    And in the morning, tongues and pointing finger arise
    Whose son did it?
    Which gang did it?
    Unending question and guesses 
    With unknown answers
    The street ever busy in the morning and at night
    But scanty at noon
    School children come back by noon
    Parents at evening 
    But doers do not return for they have nowhere to go.
    The street never changes
    Years after, a new set of saints and doers arise
    Recycling the process over and over again
    The street never gets tired
    During my years of existence, the street remain the same
    But with a different set of saints and doers

                                                                   

    Onoberhie Janet Ojevwe is a Nigerian and a final year student of the University of Benin where she is currently in pursuit of a Bachelor’s degree in English language and Literature.

  • Two Poems by Mercy Musa

    A Body Performing a Disappearing Act

    Like lace dipped in vinegar sorrow
    the nature of my narcissism is translucent,
    this body, almost transparent, almost fading to nothing
    this skin, almost disappearing, almost syncing to dust

    If only I could hold light in the palm of my hands,
    push bits of it under each layer of my skin
    maybe then will heaven see
    how much this body aches for visibility
    to be seen as it is, brown and in bloom

    Speak of a body and watch as this body disappears,
    blends with the dark and makes love with its shadow.
    speak of a body and watch as my mother’s hands slip right 
    through this body at every attempt to hug pain away,
    speak of a body and watch as this body vanishes under my lover’s eyes.

    Nightfall in Igarra

    The moon tonight is dimmed
    from sipping too much darkness,
    the clouds are blending towards
    nothing. I am trailing behind my mother
    into the night, with clay pots etched under our arms 
    & our feets pressing into sinking grounds.
    we are before a stream and before we dip out pots
    we first sing. first appease the bending trees and resting waves 
    with air suspended in our lungs, we sing
    we sing for the stream in Etuno, our local dialect.

    Mercy Musa is a Nigerian writer who writes from Lagos state . She is a lover of African literature and fantasy books. Her work has appeared in Green Black Tales magazine and The Muse Journal. 

  • Night song – Abdulrazaq Salihu 

    after Sylvia Plath

    The rusty blood of brown blades 
    Set your body to rest like bean seed 
    In dry soil — decay.
    My small palms lay  5 inches  too small
    To hold your shoulders and the soft-
    Cracked air the night flushes in.
    An ode starts beside my lungs, magnifying 
    The beginning of a requiem     A new body
    That stared  too much into Medusa’s eyes
    Has come to rest, stone strong.  Your silence,
    A silhouette of our suffering casts its beauty 
    Fluorescent bulb staring tiredly at the open 
    Glow of the room shuts into darkness.
    You’re no more my father than the broken 
    Lyric of sad poems inject glory into a river’s 
    Mouth to reflect gory memories.
    All hail your breathlessness, how unpleasant 
    It makes me feel. I push my large ear into the 
    [supposedly] contracting corner of your chest 
    And the sound of objects put to rest  fills my ear.
    Realization, matter how cruel, strikes my head
    With a baton the size of a maize stalk. My eyes
    Shut roughly like small belts on wide waists 
    The night shuts softly like quiet.
    The music     Starts slowly 
    In time for the loss.     The way  kullu nafsin 
    Attaches itself to the lip   Of za’ikatul maut. 

    Abdulrazaq Salihu  TPC I is a Poet and member of the hilltop creative arts foundation. He has works published/forthcoming in Bracken, Eunoia review, Poetry column, poetry archive, poetry quarterly, Jupiter review, masks lit mag, and others. He won the 2022 masks lit mag poetry award, the Nigerian prize for teen authors, splendors of Dawn poetry contest and a suite of other prizes. He tweets @Arazaqsalihu and on instagram: Abdulrazaq._salihu 

  • Christening of Peculiar Things – Oliaku Wisdom Ikechukwu 

    Call the world how it unfolds,
    a feeble, starving petal growing in your blistered palms
    towards the sun, from the spaces between your fingers 
    where mine used to intertwine.
    Call my love how it reaches,
    this nimble, persistent thing floating in an ocean
    of hurt inside of me, inviting you in
    (or the thought of you inviting me in), 
    In walls of a heart holding chants and space
    until my mind becomes your temple, 
    you wickedly delectable thing.
    Call a rose what it is, greet its thorns
    and salute the pain it leaves (once she leaves)
    and you are folded into March, sliced into three, 
    one for her to think about in faint lethargy, 
    one for the world to commiserate,
    and the last for solitude to try to destroy.
    Call a shadow what it brings,
    all the silent wandering, from dark
    unto obscurity, always lingering like a nightmare, 
    like a bad kiss in June, my first kiss with you.
    call the stars what they hide
    a million wishes, all of its light to obscure the obscurer.

    Wisdom is an avid reader and a weaver of words, with his first stint with poetry coming at a 2015 spoken word performance. He is a multiple-time finalist in the Tush Magazines writing contest, a content strategist, and an SEO writer with years of experience. When not lost in verses or re-reading Christopher Okigbo’s The Passage, Wisdom can be found drowning in his Indie Folk playlist and getting inspired by Bon Iver.

  • ‘The Past Future War’ & ‘Mane’ – Mark Kennedy Nsereko

    (Use desktop mode to get the best visual experience of Mark’s poems)

    The Past Future War 

                   the oldies think they’re gold                                    the futures eager to occupy spaces
             the seedlings think they’re rubies                                  the pasts unwilling to leave positions
    the former crowns the latter the future,                                  the latter insists on being in charge,
           yet never call themselves the past.                                  as the formers remain inexperienced.
                       

    the past decides for the futures,                      the oldies think they’re justified
                          decisions require experience.                       the seedlings are just entitled
                            the oldies think they’re gold                       the oldies think they know best,
                         the seedlings are but, newbies                       the seedlings deserve less.
                    

    the justified wear their medals of toil      Why have the entitled,
                         the entitled tire rather too quickly      if not to bequeath your titles?
                      the justified preach hard work pays,     the oldies think they’re gold.
                                 the entitled are not believers.     the seedlings think they’re rubies.
                                       

      the oldies are certain they’re intelligent,
                                                                     the intelligent assert subordination,
                                          like at a latter age comes sage.
                                                                  sexual morality and cave ways.
                                       The seedlings rejoice in their ignorance,
                                                                     the ignoramus want life on their own terms,
                                        they’ll know better when they come of age.
                                                                   gold belongs in the ground.

    Mane 

                                                         I was taught my hair 
                                          is a disease, grass to cut short; dispose of
                                   those weeds. Routinely scoured bald for school, while
                       the Indian kids played with their hair ribbons. Teachers zealously 
                hunted us with scissors, to make paths on our scalps. They grinned ear to
              ear as they mutilated our bodies. We were taught our hair was shame. They
           called our hair unkempt, for they couldn’t fathom that a mane sprouts not to be
         kempt. To them my hair was shabby, for they saw it through the colonialist’ gaze
     whose mandate they elevate. Employers demand qualified men cut their dreadlocks to 
     get hired, weighing competence by the length of the strands. Do clients seek our tresses
      or our prowess? They say men                                                    who plait hair are bayaye.
        Count the country’s                                                                        biggest crooks filling
         public offices with hairless heads.                      Forever too quick to dictate what a
            respectable man                                                                              should dress like.   
             Today, I grow my                                                                            mane carelessly,   
                 shear when I                                                                            want, not when   
                   they tell me.                                                                          those who find    
                       me feminine                                                                       call me she/     
                            girly, to                                                                     emasculate        
                                 me. I am                                                            flattered   
                                       for woman is a synonym for beauty. What my     
                                           mane does                                 is accentuate  
                                               me. I bask in their stares as I whip my    
                                                      hair; contempt or reverence.  
                                                          A crown of pride I wear.  
                                             

    Mark Kennedy Nsereko is a Ugandan writer. His work reimagines beauty, draws darkness, and reveals bits of what keeps him up all night. His writings have featured in the poetry anthology I Promise This Song Is Not About Politics and Brittle Paper.