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 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
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
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 […]