Gabriel Okara’s The Fisherman’s Invocation is not merely a collection of poems; it is a haunting voyage into the turbulent waters of memory, colonial disillusionment, and the spiritual ache of a people searching for balance between the ancestral and the modern.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on the Government of the State of Israel to release South Africans and other nationals abducted as part of Israeli authorities’ interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla.
Zahra’s literary journey began early. Her debut collection, The Dance of Dawn (2018), published when she was just seventeen, went on to be adopted as a set text at the University of Abuja and other institutions. With Girls and the Silhouette of Form, she not only expanded her poetic voice but also made history as the first female poet published by Masobe Books, the vibrant publishing house founded by Othuke Omniabohs.
I am that song you nod and hum to but still can’t sing along with, because, sometimes, it’s too deep. Yet, it flows, attracting passersby who know nothing of the sadness within.
"It is exciting to welcome Tanure Ojaide to the Konya Shamsrumi family," S. Su'eddie Vershima Agema, Managing Editor of Konya Shamsrumi noted.
No one wants a gathering of aunts. They will sit in a semi-circle, with me before them: head low and my shame a halo above my head. They will pass my poem from one bewildered hand to another. It will be a love poem. They will shake their heads; make a valley out of their mouths, clap their hands, and let out both audible and inaudible sighs. They will look at me with eyes carrying both disappointment and wonder. They will wonder how I am able to write all these things. Wonder how I even know these things exist, the child that I am. They will try to reconcile their sweet daughter with the stranger on the page. Then they will ask for the identity of the one who has taken my heart..
Perhaps, given the new shame in so many places around the world, it is especially urgent for humanity not only to read “Es werde liecht” (Let there be light) but also to live it.
