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Poetry, by nature, defies expectations, language and logic. Asking it to stay true to its nature while also making readers fall in love with seems like a big task. This is not impossible; however, it would require our generation to be more patient reading through poetry despite its congenital difficulty. Nonetheless, there are collections that make one fall head over heels with poetry by being true to their nature of defying every bit of expectation about language.
The books in this recommendation are wide-ranging in their subjects and inventive in style: from a book that takes the Sahara Desert as a discursive symbolic representation of the African reality, to books with renewed fascinations with migration, the continent’s colonial history, the diasporic experience, and the intricate dynamics of urban life, among others. Meanwhile, what all these books have in common is their approach to the art of writing the poetry itself: the how, which is the equal half of what the poems are about. Their styles and voices are not only requisite, exquisite, and marvellous but also singular where they matter most, achieving the grander aim of getting more readers to poetry through their forceful mastery. These books serve as evidence that, even in literature, the bare minimum is to do our best.
Read the recommendations below.
exodus
author: ‘gbenga adeoba
Genre: poetry
In poetry, as almost invariably nowhere else, debuts are often the lowest point of many poets’ learning curve. However, Gbenga Adeoba’s Exodus is one of the few literary pieces of evidence to the contrary, proving that a first book can come fully formed as the book to beat towards greatness.
From the haunting imagery of migrants crossing the Mediterranean to the historical echoes of the Atlantic slave trade, Adeoba’s poems are a masterclass in empathy and precision. Each poem conveys the resilience of the human spirit, capturing the pain, hope, and loss of those who have been displaced by war, poverty, and history.
Both tender and unflinching, Adeoba’s language articulates the personal and the political in a way that is both moving and unforgettable. Almost every poem in this book is written to be remembered.
clinical blues
AUTHOR: dami ajayi
GENRE: poetry
In Clinical Blues, the Nigerian poet and psychiatrist Dami Ajayi is a bunch of guys: he is equally a lover, doctor, satirist and, most predictably, a poet. Structured in three sections with different but ultimately interweaving, inter alia, themes of love and romance, medicine, cultural memory, historical amnesia, and corrupt Nigerian politics, the Blues are everything from intense, jaw-dropping, to outright seductive. There is a lot to love about poetry in this debut collection, not least because you get to read the fresh manifestation of a talented imagination.
bending the bow: An Anthology of African Love Poetry
editOR: frank chipasula
GENRE: poetry
Anthologies are the inexhaustibly beautiful damsels of literary pageantries. Although it is always useful to read the whole of a poet to understand what the poet is truly about, anthologies are the books to read to understand generations and what those generations think about particular aspects of their time.
In Bending the Bow: An Anthology of African Love Poetry, the Malawian poet and editor Frank Chipasula works against the grains of the age-old notion that Africans aren’t capable of high feelings. (The German philosopher Immanuel Kant once wrote, in ‘On National Characteristics’ that ‘The Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling that rises above the trifling.’) The point of the anthology is that love has been with us for as long as the time before the written word got the name: the anthology starts from African traditional love poetry transmitted orally through the ages from Egypt, Ghana, Morrocco, Tanzania, and other parts of Africa and ends with modern and contemporary expression of love from such luminaries like Kofi Awoonor, António Jacinto, Niyi Osundare, David Rubadiri etc.
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the sahara testaments
AUTHOR: tade ipadeola
GENRE: poetry
Panoramic in scope and magisterial in form, Tade Ipadeola’s The Sahara Testament is a generational text. A top-notch, sweeping evocation of the African as well as the global situation, written in strict quatrains that span almost 200 pages, the Testament is as much criticism of the status quo in politics, the environment, and aspects of our ways of life as it is a celebration of the beauty of ‘these immense lands’ and a resounding corrective about the nature of the Saharascape itself. The ‘desert’ in ‘Sahara Desert’ is nothing short of a misnomer as a metaphor and, in this poetry collection of a spectacular argument, the claim is made with forceful ingenuity. ‘Listen, the desert is singing. Singing, just singing.’
adam
Author: gboyega odubanjo
Genre: poetry
The late British-Nigerian poet Gboyega Odubanjo had a tremendous imagination and if the only evidence of this that we have is his Adam, then we have it rather overwhelmingly. A grand, precise symbol for the complicated experience of Black people in foreign lands, among other things, Adam critically reimagines the horrifying story of a young boy’s torso found floating across the Thames in 2001: ‘now the body / of an unidentified boy aged between four and seven / was in the river for up to ten days before a passer by / noticed.’ Complex and showstopping, Adam is a book to read and reread.
in these bones, i am shifting
AUTHOR: claudia owusu
GENRE: poetry
The Ghanaian-American poet Claudia Owusu’s In These Bones, I Am Shifting is an earnest exploration of diaspora, womanhood, identity, and the daedal ties that bind family, homeland, and self-acceptance. Through clear recollections of Ghana and the raw, unfiltered experiences of coming-of-age, Owusu’s book is a gorgeous poetry collection about belonging and transformation. At its heart, this collection is a celebration of the journey toward self-love and acceptance, as well as what it means to find oneself amidst the shifting landscapes of life.
african urban echoes
editORs: Jide Salawu, Rasaq Malik Gbolahan
GENRE: poetry
In African Urban Echoes, editors Jide Salawu and Rasaq Malik Gbolahan curate a vibrant assemblage of voices that capture the essence of African cities in all their complexity and dynamism. This anthology brings together a diverse array of poets from across the continent, from Gbemisola Adeoti, Tade Ipadeola, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley to alma Simba, each providing a distinctive perspective on urban life.
From meditations on the bustling streets of Lagos and the historic walls of Kano to the overwhelming beauties of Marrakesh, the poems in this collection explore themes of migration, identity, resilience, and the ever-present tension between tradition and modernity. The anthology is a celebration of the African city as a living, breathing entity, filled with both chaos and beauty, elegance and suffering. The poets’ voices are as varied as the cities they depict, yet they all share an unyielding connection to the urban landscapes that shape their lives. African Urban Echoes is not just a collection of poems; it is a love letter to the cities that define a continent.