Poetry

 (When words paddle  their way from  English to Korean) A new 240-page book containing the Korean translation of  a selection of  my  poems found its way into my hands a couple of  weeks ago – after waiting for six months in the parcels vault of the Nigerian post office. Long-coming but enthusiastically embraced.  An ample, […]

I love my country. But America Courts me — the man with everything. I love my country: Dark, Black, Gold Yellow teeth & a hunger for me: My country with its abundant rains That loves us to death. I love my country. But America Is big everywhere: Texas. McDonald’s. Starbucks. America Sephora, Walmart, IKEA, The […]

We are H-A-P-P-Y We are H-A-P-P-Y We know we are We are sure we are We are H-A-P-P-Y Happppppy! I I come from the country Of the Happiest People on earth, Where death sells at ten for one kobo And the Living envy the peace Of the hastily dispatched. Living every day on the edge […]

In 2011, Dami Ajayi successfully completed his first collection of poems, Clinical Blues, and it marked for him, the completion of an epiphany which began in 2007, when as a young medical student, a new vision of the world caught up with him. This new vision afforded him the clarity to see the world afresh […]

I still remember my ball boy training you have to squat with your left leg simultaneously kneel with your right leg perpendicular to your left so even if you miss the catch the ball is halted by your legs at a 90-degree angle I often missed the catch even before my strokes never the athlete […]

In the traditions that established earlier voices in modern Africa poetry, sociopolitical maladies have remained an arch theme. In the words of Omafune Onoge, what rocks African poetry most is the crisis of consciousness. And it is expected. Given the social political terrain of postcolonial Africa and the disillusionment that followed. Most African poets, ranging […]

Let us start with a confession — mine, at least: I don’t know where the poets are. Or I don’t read them because I hardly hear their names and haven’t seen their books, because no one is reviewing them in magazines or talking about them, not even at a gathering of writers drinking beer. Or […]

At an event in Lagos today, the entries for the 2022 Nigeria Prize for Literature  were handed over to the panel of judges by the Chair of the Prize’s Advisory Board, Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo. Every year, the Nigeria Prize for Literature, sponsored by the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) accepts a flurry of entries dedicated […]

“We have a lot of insecurity in Nigeria. By road we are not safe. By train we are not safe”. (From a survivor of the Abuja-Kaduna Train bomb; Mon., March 28, 2022) Too many ills do a nation kill Ills just as many as the corpses That clutter every gutter Of our callously mis-governed country […]

NIGERIAN SUBSIDY AND THE REAL  SUBSIDISERS Here, in plain, unsubsidized language      Are the basic facts   About the fabled Nigerian “subsidy”      Whose endless lies have besieged our ears We the Nigerian people subsidize      The rampant CORRUPTION of our rulers We the Nigerian people subsidize      Their fatal incompetence and prodigal greed We the Nigerian people subsidize      Those […]