These three poems by Toyin Adewale-Gabriel 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.
The Road to Jos
A Journey of insights for AIG
Naughty rocks spilling the tales of a volcano,
Date palms festooned with mistletoe,
Clouds kissing roads, mystery engulfed mists,
Twisting tanker trailers, avocados like mother's breasts.
Faith is your herald to this Plateau of the crisp wind.
Let the mangos succor you. Let the cacti stand sentry.
Wake to the miraculous and to yellow roses,
the kindness of strangers, day after day
Because of the Mighty God of Toyin,
Let the benison of the everlasting hills drench you like rivulets.
Goree
We have come to the cliff, a sheer drop
cried below, death was asleep there,
snoring in the aquamarine waters.
Beneath the French fortress, Ganga men
smoked on, hanging castaways on knotty trees.
We travelled a little while, a little lost.
We held the baobab trees, glistening in the dusk,
whispering how many were lost, how many never returned.
Without knowing why, we babbled like babies
in the house of slaves, smells grabbed us like memories
in this meeting of ways at the gate of no return.
We sail to the sale across the endless sea,
the medley of voices, the nights without cover
when a master’s sperm beckons, children strewn
like harmattan dust, what can the Portuguese say;
only that we too were here, trampling on men and fish.
Here, volcanoes become rock and sand,
boababs live to tell the tale to a museum of women.
Hot colors wed in the sun, brick-red for loss,
turquoise for joy, green for an elegant shoulder swathed in boubou
In the avenue of baobabs, griots recline,
strumming on balafons. Tell it to us, these things we forget,
the garden of desert plants, the ruins of cannon guns.
Transience
A skein of sparrows flitting on air currents, thunder is
running a promo in the stall where sun meets rain.
Earth begets flora on a creaky stool under a blanket of cassava leaves,
corn hair, fauna and beans, soon swept away by flash floods.
Not all who wander are lost, we seek the burnt grass scent of the first rain
like a bride immersing herself in what is to come, a moon bath,
an outpour of incense and lavish oils, thrusts of tenderness,
whispers of future fruit, as Ali Farka Toure sings on the stereo.
In that gelato season, when tomorrow was dream and dumplings,
who could foretell the shadows of egrets that would
peck at our backs, ushering in the crackling harmattan
pouring tepid water down our throats?
The sepia of our earth was a promise of sugar cubes. Why does the
sandstorm harvest perfidy? We have invested on the ballot of thieves,
our young are shuttering windows of home, skipping rope on strange roads,
stanching sweat and squeaking in small, strangulated voices.
Lean over, motherland, let me whisper this,
I love you and this sum you owe me:
A sod-turning, a new leaf, the wind fragranced with ripe fruit trees,
our children wrapped in grit and a proud legacy.
About Toyin Adewale-Gabriel
Toyin Adewale-Gabriel was born in Ibadan, Oyo State, and grew up in Lagos. She holds a Master’s degree in Literature in English from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, which she obtained in 1995. Her works include Naked Testimonies, Die Aromaforscherin (Explorer of Aromas), Bitter Chocolate, 25 New Nigerian Poets (ed.), Nigerian Women Short Stories (ed.), and Breaking the Silence (co-ed.). Her work has been widely anthologised and translated into German, French, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, and Finnish. She has presented her work at conferences and poetry festivals across Africa, Europe, North America, and South America. Adewale-Gabriel has served on the Executive of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), as Editor of the ANA Review, and as Chair of the Women Writers Committee of PEN International, Nigeria Chapter. She was also a member of the jury for the 2022 Nigeria Prize for Literature (Poetry), awarded by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG). She lives in Abuja, Nigeria.
