The Benue Book & Arts Festival (BBAAF) is set to make its exciting debut in Nottingham on Saturday, 25th January 2025. The event, organised by the SEVHAGE Literary and Development Initiative and SEVHAGE Publishers, will take place at the Central Library in Nottingham from 10:00am to 3:30pm and promises to be a day filled with thought-provoking discussions, performances, and networking opportunities. This inaugural edition marks a significant step in SEVHAGE’s mission to create a platform for cultural exchange, celebrating literature, art, and the power of storytelling.

So when in the psych ward in 2016, words leaked out of me like pus, I did not worry about the boundary of this or that. Cows and pigeons filled the room from the fields of childhood. I let the sun be a coin, did not resist seeing the moon’s arc as a shiny scar in the night sky.

Through poetry, I was able to express the inexpressible, to give voice to the emotions that threatened to consume me. I wrote about love, loss, longing, hope and the universal human experiences that connect us all.

I’ve carried that mindset in every piece I write, I never use my phone to write. Instead  I lock myself away with my laptop that only has Microsoft word paired with a thought-racing mind. Most times before I write a good poem I’m very hungry, I probably wouldn’t have eaten the whole day. Me being uncomfortable pushes my brain to lock in, not get distracted and finish the work  so I can be comfortable again.

Since I was born, daddy bought us books. He was a writer himself, writing stories in notebooks that ended up in corners of the house, unpublished. Had my father been born in more recent times, he’d be a great writer, I think.

Although a chapbook of very short poems (which seems like the poets’ attempt to test the water of critical reception), part of the aesthetic appeal of the collection is the poets’ use of language.

I was becoming so good, too good that I could write someone’s destiny. So when my muse became tired of my poetic praises and my love, I lost all purpose. Soon I became an empty quill. Speechless. I reduced myself to a spectator, attending poetry events and festivals in Kano, Abuja, Kaduna or wherever I could, and from afar I’d cheer online performers in Orange Poetry, Hilltop or Alitfest, while I go snap, snap, snap, or fire emoji, fire emoji.

After reviewing thousands of applications from Africa and the Diaspora, the LOATAD Black Atlantic Residency supported by Hawthornden Foundation have picked 10 applicants for their 2025 residency including Abdulrazaq Salihu.

There are many ways to read “A Cult of Fireflies”— the best, in the company of a lover, a private picnic in a lush garden under the sun. Because each poem is a box of sweet, each stanza, a smile unwrapped, each line, a glass of wine.

Following the release of Jamila Abbas's poetry collection, "Between the lines of a photograph", the official launch of the collection is set to take place on the 23rd of November, 2024 at 3:00 pm at Moeshen cafe, Abuja, Nigeria.