I Wanted To Be – Laine Derr
a superhero who forgets.a bag of chips, Family Size.a feast of flies buzzing my name.a mundane Monday.a loping coyote crying for flesh.a box of wings w/out weight.a diet of treats.a griot drinking a calabash song.a knife-sharpened tongue.a bone bruised blue.a…
Leaked Footages: A Gift of Meaning in a Chaotic World
Imagine walking through a charred forest that still smells of fresh rain—a paradox where destruction and hope meet, intertwining like roots and ash, Abu Bakr Sadiq’s poetry collection, Leaked Footages, reverberates with such depth of vulnerability that endears its reader(s)…
“Garden Poem” and “Flower Poem” by Ehiorobo Derek
Garden Poem My mother taught me, every garden startswith weeding. So to create life, we must firstderacinate. It is our nature to dress destructionin clothes made of flowers. Today, I picked a spot to place my gardenand sharpened my cutlass…
The Emotive Verse: Joemario Umana on Influences, Process, and the Exploration of Masculinity
Joemario Umana is one of the rising voices in contemporary Nigerian poetry. Hailing from Maiduguri, Umana’s work explores the intricacies of identity, vulnerability, and the interaction between the physical and the emotive poetic realms. Umana is a SprinNG fellow, member…
Construct – Joemario Umana
whatever you say into the wind takes form,for there is power in your tongue, the preacher said ever since, I’ve been waging warwith the wind with my tongue the wind has refused to shapeshifto, how I envy the sky how…
France as a Critically Black, Gay American – De’Andre Holmes
For the first time in my 28 years of living, I was regarded as an American—and revered for it—at a gay bar in Lyon, France, on New Year’s Eve, 2022. That evening, if you didn’t study it properly, would have…
Alkaline Water – Udochukwu Chidera
If I were asked when it all started, I would say it was the night after she had Somkene. In the weeks leading up to that night, Chi-Chi looked forward to having her child, decorating the nursery with different shades…
Sympatheia and the Poetic Archive of Human Experience —Abu Bakr Sadiq
Abu Bakr Sadiq is the author of Leaked Footages (University of Nebraska Press, 2024), which won the 2023 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry. “Leaked Footages” is a profound meditation on loss, memory, and the search for meaning in a world…
In The Beginning – Carolina Torres & Laine Derr
We created honey.We created the passion of a gentle breeze.We created golden daffodils in bloom.We created the book of yellow-breasted birds.We created a child who loves the taste of morning dew.We created the color of caramel skin.We created days of…
Chameleon – Gbenga Emmanual
You haven’t seen anything yet.I remembered the day when my fatherBrought a beast in bizarre shape—It’s two ironical toes are jointly entwinedBut engaged in striking variationsBetween life and the other way roundHave you seen it before? Mark my words—It is…