Author: Lion and Lilac
CONFRONTING THE BOGEYMAN: a review of Olumide Holloway’s Darkness can be Very Dark
Darkness Can be Very Dark is a collection of twenty-seven poems that attempt a conflux of oral and literary artistry. It’s a gritty collection of spoken-word-style poems that’s unafraid of shadows—exploring an impressive range of personal, social, and spiritual themes. There’s a rawness to the emotions expressed in this work that is both honest and […]
Home in Motion Review by Steve Urwin
From Nigeria to Newcastle, a series of short declarations of love for a new home. Love letters from Tyneside, ecological concerns of neighbours, financial gripes and repeated declarations, of how the new city has welcomed and shaped the poet: “This was the spool from where dreams were woven.” There are some gripes, of course. From […]
HOPE AS A DREAMSCAPE: a review of Lanre Sonde’s Canvas of Freedom by Jide Badmus
The title of the poem gifts us a subtle paradox, soft on the mind, easy to miss. A canvas traps everything within itself. It hangs on a wall, too. Oddly, a virgin canvas is an invitation to boundless imagination—and a good portrait is a door to dauntless dreams. What a way to welcome the reader […]
The Lust Vault: A Review of Betrayals and Diamonds
Title: Betrayals and Diamonds Author: N. Viktoria Published: 2023 Reviewed by: Jide Badmus Alec Nolan, a retired jewel thief, gets pulled back into the world of high-stakes crime by a former partner for one last job. Alec is on the run and goes into hiding when his attempt to steal the Pemberton Diamonds fails. The […]
LOVE POTION
Title: A Cult Of Fireflies Author: Naimah Abdullahi Sabo & Iliya Kambai Dennis Number of pages: 30 Year of publication: 2024 Reviewer name: Hope Joseph Like the way you find welcoming signs or messages imprinted on the walls of some ancient households, so is this chapbook. It welcomes you with demure verses more […]
WHOSE FAULT, KISMET OR IMPEDIMENT? a chronicle of lamentations
Title: Whose Fault, Kismet or Impediment? Author: Peter Okonkwo No. of Pages: 184 Genre: Poetry Year of Publication: 2021 ISBN: 9-798-4151-0104-7 Reviewer: Iliya Kambai Dennis Your life is a battlefield. You have fought many times; still fighting to become a contradiction of your past and current dilemma. Last two nights—after your boss ushered your […]
Four Poems | Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
Two Drops Taste of the bitter tearshere on the table. Whois hungry for pain? Who wants to share this dessert? Take two drops. It is less heavy than sweet bread or hope that never comes. If it is too much for you, you could leave. If you could stomach one drop, this longing will dissolve. […]
Four Poems | Ian Mullins
The Road Goes On Forever For Sting (professional wrestler, now ‘retired’.) Less carnival than comedy; because when the greasepaint is showered off, the plastic barbed wire locked in the trunk with the real thumb tacks and the rubber baseball bats, every career that’s by-passed tragedy ends with an old man who’s done the […]
Two Poems | Marvellous Igwe
Sisyphus It is totally possible to sum the entirety of your life, to contract both height & depth & breadth & width into a corridor. Come, behold these paintings, not of who I am, but of who I am to be. They stand glorious before me, 3, 4, 5, 6, as far as the […]
Akpojotor Peter’s play “Adaugo” Dramatises Childhood Travail in a Depraved Society
When one reads children’s literature, one, often, reads either an adventure story, myth, morality story, stories of the innocence and joy of childhood, or a narrative—like Akpojotor’s play—of the travail which children go through while growing up. The play, Adaugo, is a critical portraiture of how the kind of family children grow up from, parents/relatives […]