Tag: poetry
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
What Do I Call My Love For Your Body? Jide Badmus Pays Homage To the Body in this Enchanting Collection of Poems | Creative Titan
Reviewer: Creative Titan From time immemorial, humans have been renowned as sensual beings with intense longing and the human body carries a lot of this responsibility. Jide Badmus’ “What Do I call My Love For Your Body” delves into this sacred realm. The lines in the first stanza of the opening poem Body Language […]
Four Poems | Michael Brockley
Brunette It was the year beautiful brunettes wore their hair like elaborate midnights on top of their heads. Everyday, I stifled the urge to kiss the brunette pianist who read music with brown eyes. She taught the bankers’ wives to play piano. “Chopsticks” and “Turkey in the Straw.” I listened on a bench across the […]
Two Poems | Lynn White
Time Passes The pier is still standing but it’s all that remains. No boats will tie up there again. The sea has moved away from here so there aren’t any fishermen to bring in their catch or to hang their rods over the side. The fish have left with the sea and time stands still […]