Stories From Young African Poets: To love a “no name” And Zainab Tijani Mohammed.

…Memory feeds me words,

pressed into my fingertips,

woven into my voice,

giving birth to echoes and dreams…

Initially, poetry was just another subject in school, words strung together, one after the other. As a child, my mind was more focused on the empty cans waiting to be filled with sand or crushing biscuits into paste to bake into cake. I don’t know where the concept of time immemorial fits into the corners of my memory, but words have always lived somewhere in my heart. I just didn’t know exactly where, so I never bothered to visit.

In the evenings, I loved spending time with my siblings reading Enid Blyton’s books so you can say my love for words was also evident then. I’ve also always been someone who writes handwritten letters to express my emotions and writes in my diary to understand my feelings better. It seems it’s always been in me, even if I didn’t know it at the time.

I grew up in a house filled with books. My dad’s stack of them seemed endless and so that sparked my interest.

Poetry, for me, was a love I didn’t even know had a name. When I finally saw and understood what was flowing from my fingers onto the page, I never looked back.

My point is, poetry was always inside me. I just didn’t have a name for it until it called out to me.

Memory dishes me a plate of cold noodles,

trapped in a cube-sized lunch box.

Ink-streaked pages, smudged ambitions on a notebook,

a dainty lawyer sketched in daydreams—

missing front tooth, wide grin,

framed in certainty, 

Fragile yet fierce,

knowing what she will have, 

will be – in the future 

Memory hands me crayons,

bleeding beyond the lines—

notes to friends, scrawled confessions,

a book unwritten, 

a future waiting.

Memory feeds me words,

pressed into my fingertips,

woven into my voice,

giving birth to echoes and dreams—

a poet, a dreamer,

becoming.

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Hannah Omokafe Dennis

Hannah Omokafe Dennis Is A 24-year-old Journalist, Voice-Over artist and UNFPA Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health Rights Advocate Living In Nigeria. She Currently Serves As A Community Manager In Konya Shamsrumi AndHas Some Of Her Written Works Published On Writer's Space Africa and audio stories on Genti media. She Enjoys Using Words And Her Voice To Tell Stories. She Tweets @Omokafe_forite.

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