Guest Editors: Nadra Mabrouk and K. Eltinaé
Cover Design by Tochi Itanyi
Poetry stirs us from within, awakens our senses and reminds us of what we knew before we forgot all that is important to us as a species. The cadre of poets selected by Ebenezer Agu and his team demonstrate the sensitivity and courage that marks true poetry. From Africa and its diaspora, poets spin beauty into images that rain their urgent message to humanity in the throes of a moral drought. In a range of styles, these poems explore and expand English to resonate the multiplicity of African voices. From the minuscule yet significant placement of every comma, every line break, the breath of these poems speaks to the heart, to the mind, to the soul. These are indeed words “to grow a garden from the little seeds of your heart” (Simon Ngu’ni), poems that will spawn more poems, will awaken more poets. Serious, strident, playful – a promising, powerful clutch from the next generation of greats.
– Phillipa Yaa de Villiers
I wanted to know if my hands would be enough to hold me
someone left this door open and
another has invited the rudeness of their fingers left them grazing at my thighs
there are children playing in this park
and there is sand for when they land
in their mother’s arms
there is a lonely swing set
that has lost love to broken slides
we drove out of town to be husbands, naming an ostrich
of filthy talons from the balcony of our shared hotel room.
we honeymooned the playground at dusk
I hope you smell that, and I hope
you got to smell all the flowers while they were
fresh at your door whenever you opened it to
enter, and when you finally opened it to go.
A few lines from the poem, “Swallowing Suns,” by Mahtem Shiferraw flashed through our minds as we delved into the
Language is the essence of poetry – what poetry is in and of itself – irrespective of where it is
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