A new poem by Amore David Olamide, part lamentation, part evocation of the spirit of an ancestor to come forth from the grave.
Igbo biribiri, Okunkun biribiri
The commiserator of fallen trees…
Iremoje
Ugh! Television is Disgusting
Axmed Shiikh Jaamac (1942–2014) was a Somali academician, writer, poet and politician. He taught at the Ministry of Education of the former Republic of Somalia, before moving to Yemen to publish a weekly column for the journal Al-Miithaaq. Axmed eventually returned to Somalia to work as director of the Puntland Ministry of Information, Telecommunications, Culture and Heritage in Garowe.
The following poem was translated from Somali into English by Maxamed Xasan ‘Alto’ and Sarah Maguire.
You belong in the grave like all your kin from the Djinn
False hope, you’re used by the Devil to hide all his schemes…
May Ayim
I am grateful to the South African poet, Vusi Mchunu, for the following elegy dedicated to the Afro-German poet, educator and activist May Ayim.
It is a long fall from the concrete heights of Kreuzberg
It is a long way to the hill of Alt St. Matthaeus Cemetery…
Albino
A new poem by Ghanaian poet Adjei Agyei-Baah, about the discrimination faced by albinos in Africa and other parts of the world.
Yours is a hard tale to tell
one already known in every household…
Amuna, You are Bad News
Evans Okoyo is a Kenyan poet who has been building a following on his Youtube channel. One powerul poem, Amuna Wachne Rach (“Amuna, You are Bad News”) addresses alcoholism. Evans says that he was motivated to write this composition following the untimely deaths of some of his good friends.
The first few of minutes of the video introduce us to the central figure of the poem, a drunkard who begins conversing with “Amuna”, his bottle of liquor.
