Watch Isaac Daniel’s PROUDLY AFRICAN
Watch Isaac Daniel’s PROUDLY AFRICAN spoken word poetry at the Art X Acoustics. Isaac Daniel is an award winning Spoken Word Artist. He is known for his energy and flawless delivery. Enjoy! <a
To All Women and Sisters Fighting Silent Wars: Superwoman
Here is a beautiful poem to all sisters and women in the world 🗺 fighting a battle in silence. Giving many hope whereas they themselves lack some hope. To those who make others smile, who makes them smile too?
Body of Mine
My name is Woedem Afua Parku and I am a storyteller. My work is a project of documentation, preservation of experiences and creation of safe spaces. I write to heal from and pay homage to the tradition of silence and constructs that have been warped into the fabric of our daily existence. I write for the girls with saggy breasts and stretch marks who sometimes struggle with self love and acceptance. I am drawn to the experiences of women who carry a whole lineage on their backs and somehow pass on gold plated spines to their kin. I am drawn to everyday experiences of individuals beating the odds, ignoring constructs and living their best lives. These are the stories I want to tell. I want to inspire a new crop of artists to fearlessly curate and tell their stories. To move mountains,to create healing – by themselves, for themselves.
Ofem Ubi’s Photography Meets Poetry #6
True contentment will come when we bury pretense and resurrect our flaws bare as we can be Every time I sit reminiscing of me being Moses Drawn out from the first seed my Mother ever nurtured As I look back with a multitude of four holding the hem of my garment Will I ever part this red sea of expectations? Is the rod in my hand potent enough to break my fear like bread? Will I ever see Canaan? And do my parents bank their hope on me who is yet guaranteed of a sunny sky My vision is blur Even a thousand lenses can’t capture this state of chaos I drown in All the world sees is a fresh black bearded youth But beneath are strands of anxiety dragged daily into the mud My hope sits on a wheel chair And there’s none to steer me into the river…
Ofem Ubi’s Photography Meets Poetry #5
I just feel allergic being someone else, i’m not that good an actress I was never told to love me I grew up with spikes as skin Hidden under the overlays of mascaras Birthed with the idea that remixing my skin would buy acceptance The green card I always needed So I became caged bird Confined in the bars of self-pretence I tied my worth into acute brows and rainbow faces I was unpleasant music A noise in serenity All I needed was a kiss blown from the lips of the inner me But they were a mashup of contours and blushes I felt that little drifting would guarantee trophy I thought blending in would make me sell And though it did in a bit… I lost nature like missing period Searched for inner peace like misplaced identity And all I found was chaos constructed by pillars of peer pressure…
Ofem Ubi’s Photography Meets Poetry #4
If we don’t applaud ourselves, who will? Bare as I can be In bare I am more of hate than love I see me as miniature golf The world screams unpleasant and depraving Insecurity and I are best friends And I receive lessons of pity But then you are stranger Foreigner of my countenance And you are worth the pity For you know my weakness not my strength My rough surfaces see not where your foundation lays And my nails don’t find solace hiding under your artificial I wear my color as right Does that make me outlaw? It means I am confident So next time you find me vulnerable Wallowing in my self- laid corner of rejection Remind me that there’s no shame in being me Cure my vulnerability Give me bravery pills Remind me that my overlapped eyeballs Stand naked from their sockets in unmasked beauty My face…
Ofem Ubi’s Photography Meets Poetry #3
From birth till death My kin will always remind me of heaven Bare as I can be My cupboard is filled up With a leech of lies My shoes are filled with false pride And there’s a fleet of confusion in my sternum There’s traffic in my mind No escape route this time I should have listened When conscience spoke like gentle storm I should have obeyed When my legs were swollen in doubt Telling me that I couldn’t keep up with being china product When I had everything attainable to become original I should have read the signs When my feet sneezed every time I walked steps closer to being someone else Now I stand lost, A silhouette of myself Clothed in regret With shadow ashamed of who I have become It was never worth the fade after all So I prefer the old me Content with the little…
Ofem Ubi’s Photography Meets Poetry #2
Flaunt your weakness Let black become new strength Bare as I can be I’ll bear it all Shine with no hidden shadows A reflection of nature And a heart transparent as glass I’ll display my life like plasma Let the world see for all that matters Notice the wounds, scars and plasters The healing process after the shatter I’ll undress the distress worn on my face Put down the masquerade of Mary Kay Expose this smile that stretches like elastic And be me like I always wanted I’ll make the butterflies jealous And the heavens curious Become rainbow without colors Reach out for the sky like rocket I’ll make public my journey Show the world the thorns that beset me Lay clear my weaknesses, autobiography Be bare as I can be Muse – Felicia Otop Felicia Otop is a Radio Producer, writer, motivational speaker, sociologist e.t.c. She propounded the…
Unpaired by Kayode Olla
“Look, The Zed, many of us didn’t marry the woman we truly loved. We marry the woman that was around when we were ready to marry. So, forget this thing …” —Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie (Farafina, Lagos; p472) Ah, I wish I could still the quiet tear-filmed gaze that locked her soft eyes and mine for a long moment, when the dice of time tossed back our paths at last. My dream girl she was. I saw in his handsome searching eyes voiceless expressions of my innermost feelings, when I gazed into his dark, shiny eyes, and half-consciously muttered the name I fondly called him. MINE. I felt through her dark lustrous hair again, like I used to, to be sure it is her. I admit I missed her; and it hurts really bad. And I had called her before I knew, too: PEERLESS. My heart warmed and raced a…
BLANK PAPER BY NDIFREKE GEORGE
This is just amazing
BLEAK FUTURE #IDEYVEX BY HUMPHREY ADUN
It’s true the future is plane but we need a pen Even the sand beneath our feet is used to build fences Yesterday was ruined, today is impregnated with hope, aborted The compass is broken, shattered glasses, we cant speak of tomorrow A den ti n gbadura (weve been praying), the roof is made of steel, the answers are our echoes The land soak up the sprinkles of the rain, the ground stay dry The sky stay high, youths hustling hard, building ladders, the future stay higher So we feed on our dreams, and sow the crumps on the soils of religion We suppose dey the frontline, calling the shots in a tactical agenda for glory The story is stale, different chapters same theme, we only await gory tales On a forced match to the Eldorado is only a remnant 7000 littered on the edges of old paged papers Deafened…
An Ode To Papa – Veralyn Chinenye
It hurts when your loved one is gone