Pot of Stories
Ishola Abdulwasiu in Iskanchi Magazine
Segun and Wale are young boys who are fatherless. They are, most of the time, left alone to do their things when their mothers aren’t around. They use catapults to hunt birds and other times lure them inside a cage, and at the end of the day, they roast the birds to eat. But one day, they eat a seven-day bird. And anyone who eats the seven days bird will die on the seventh day.
Joao Melo in The Shallow Tales Review
In Luanda, this young man doesn’t know if he’s a displaced person or a refugee. He doesn’t know if he’s going to wake up tomorrow to kill again. He’s forever hungry. He lost his relatives and is begging for something to survive, to carry on.
Leila Aboulela in The Shallow Tales Review
Farah and Dahlia, two mothers who juggle motherhood and work life share their experiences as mothers with children and drift into a bit of religious discourse.
Prince Udeh in Iskanchi Magazine
In this Igbo traditional tale, a mischievous spirit charmed Akwaugo, the beautiful granddaughter of Ejelu, with an incurable curse that spikes her body.
Radha Zutshi Opubor in Omenana
In this gripping narrative of science fiction, the writer, a young Indian Nigerian, Opubor remembers her father and mother, the storms and the floods. She remembers the day she drowned.
Pot of Poetry
Safia Elhillo in Frontier Poetry
not black our grandmothers insist & point
to vague & arid swathes across the map
arabia’s tribes conveniently nomadic to place
wherever blood begins to show a touch
of dark or
Jericho Brown in Poetry Foundation
I will not shoot myself
In the head, and I will not shoot myself
In the back, and I will not hang myself
With a trashbag, and if I do,
I promise you, I will not do it
In a police car while handcuffed
Or in the jail cell
Ayokunle Samuel Betiku in Rattle
The pressing frostiness of the world is felt in a clinic in Bucha,
Where a girl lies suspended between here and the hereafter
By a gunshot wound—the encroaching gloom slowly lifting
In the swaddling warmth of a lullaby
Ars Poetica with a Broken Shahada➤
Abu Bakr Sadiq in Palette Poetry
after a quiet walk through an empty neighborhood, bhabi tells me
that the bloodstains I’d seen strewn across
the pavements, came from bodies I’d shared playgrounds with.
Samuel Adeyemi in Palette Poetry
& is it not suicidal, to be young in this land?
Each new day is a prayer to never know the
wetness of our blood; we say, let wherever
this body touches be softer than a bullet.
Book Recommendations
Yaa Gyasi (2016)
Homegoing explores the issues of African segregation in America. The author, Yaa Gyasi gives an account of the Asante wars and the issue of slavery in Ghana. The novel explores the lifestyle of Maame’s descendants as the main characters in this book.
Yaa Gyasi is a Ghanaian American Novelist. Homegoing is her debut novel, which won her the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for best first book. She was awarded a Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature in 2020.
News & Opportunities
Opportunity
Splitlip Mag has its November call for submissions and requires no submission fees.
Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition ➤
Opportunity
Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition is open for submissions with a minimum submission fee of €7 and €2,000 for the first winner.
Boston Review Annual Poetry contest ➤
News
An African poet wins the 2022 Boston Review Annual Poetry contest.