These three poems by Jide Badmus were especially chosen for The Bala Selection.
The Bala Selection is a weekly poetry feature curated by Ismail Bala for Konya Shamsrumi, showcasing distinctive new voices and resonant works from across Africa and beyond. Through his discerning eye, each selection highlights the craft, music, and emotional clarity that define contemporary poetry in its most luminous form.
Ismail Bala is a poet, translator, and critic whose work bridges classical poetics and modern sensibility, and whose mentorship has shaped a generation of emerging African poets.
Experiment
I'm a poem in a crucible,
cooking on god's bunsen.
Burette of organic prose,
I bleed in a boiling flask.
The scientist says tears are proteins.
I should shed this meat of emotions.
I seek the sanctuary of glass altars,
but the pastor is a philosopher
who can't find the vein of a miracle.
My hope is a pun in a test tube.
This specimen of faith
fails the litmus test.
In this acidic season, time is
the only structure that endures
—not these osmotic fears,
not these combustive sighs.
Time, healing metaphors
& this laboratory of words.
Kite
You hold dignity by the hand as you navigate, leg-deep in grass, unfamiliar fields. You slow down, inhale the green air, and taste timid rays. You stumble into static—frequency of doubts. Your tongue tiptoes around the garden of language. Oh, how soft things appear menacing. A boil breaks out on a vein of thought. A branch ignores the laughing old concrete, bends, and reaches for light. Speech becomes fragile in your mouth. Your brothers mock your found accent. You're a kite trapped in flight. A butterfly of memories on the spoor of wild berry dreams.
Regenesis
The heart is liable
to abrasion.
Dreams need
motives—
urgent sins,
quiet aftermaths,
& a mushroom's
mentality.
Death by nightfall
& regenesis
About Jide Badmus
Jide Badmus is a poet, editor, and book reviewer; author of four poetry books (and eight chapbooks). He is the poetry editor for Con-scio Magazine, a mentor in the SprinNG Writers fellowship, and a member of the Board of Advisors for Libretto Magazine.
Badmus is a literary promoter and the founder of INKspiredng, a Nigerian literary community and digital publishing platform dedicated to supporting young voices and grassroots initiatives. He has curated three literary festivals, five anthologies, and over twenty chapbooks.
Jide’s work has appeared in The Rumpus, Black Bough Poetry, The Nigeria Review, Agbowo, and several other publications. His book, Dawn is an Open Wound, is forthcoming from Noirledge Publishers in June 2026.
He writes from Nottingham, United Kingdom
