African Poets Bot

African Poets Bot exists to amplify, promote & celebrate African poetry, from both new & established voices, by sharing tweet-size excerpts of published poems written by Africans across an endless variety of themes. Kindly follow us. ❣️

“BIRD: You cannot know And should not bother; Tide and market come and go And so has your mother.” — John Pepper Clark [Streamside Exchange]

“CHILD: River bird, river bird, Sitting all day long On hook over grass, River bird, river bird, Sing to me a song Of all that pass And say, Will mother come back today?” — John Pepper Clark [Streamside Exchange]

“It is that my hands are also my father’s hands, and where the lines meet on the palm both of us have met and sat, each with his own silence not speaking. It is not that we are fighting It is the shape of love we have come to.” — Gbenga Adesina [Elegy of Hands]

“Here I am neurasthenic like a dog gone mad licking salty scabs of old wounds. With what words and with what face am I going to tell my orphaned children to forget their father?” — José Craveirinha [Cell 1]

“Even nightingales by West Lake cannot silence the wail of exile” — Dennis Brutus [Even Nightingales]

“this is how time is moving over the memory of you with the possibility to forgive death’s transgression. or at the very least scraping it to a bearable frame. love, see the years are peeling you back to me so fondly.” — Jakky Bankong-Obi [Peeled Back]

“In the solitary township lights and shadows play silently between the huts children sleep old people dream dogs sit panting flies buzz round the dunghill and from the roofs, threads of water drip — life affected by the absence of men—” — Antonio Jacinto [The People Went to War]

“The sun spun like a tossed coin. It whirled on the azure sky, it clattered into the horizon, it clicked in the slot, and neon-lights popped and blinked ‘Time expired’, as on a parking meter.” — Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali [Sunset]

“I imagine Kumase must have kissed silence the way new butterfly bones break after the British hellfire. The city, like the unfinished flesh of something hatched from the moon’s skull.” — Sarpong Osei Asamoah [Doomsday Device]

— Henneh Kyereh Kwaku [A short note on writing a joyful poem]

“The Ghanaian flag, once above my bed, Now bleeding on my desk. Some have said the colors are changing, The gold is a curse to our waters And Atiwa is dying, so China can find its bauxite. It is as if everyone who ever came here Was in search of their missing treasures.”

“The sun burns an open question The people have gone to war, the people have gone to war when will they come back? and no wing cuts the empty sky Kaianga has gone to war, Kaianga has gone to war I don’t know if he’ll come back” — Antonio Jacinto [The People Went to War]

“Ibadan, running splash of rust and gold — flung and scattered among seven hills like broken china in the sun.” — John Pepper Clark [Ibadan]

“Let all of you stop the death-cry and let me hear. It is home; I stood at death’s door and knocked throughout the night.” — Kofi Awoonor [Stop the Death Cry]

"They say Mussolini loved black shirts. He set the trains going on time but Rome wept all the same; Tears dropping on the hillsides of Ethiopia." —Mafika Pascal Gwala [Winter]

“I cannot blind myself to putrefying carcasses in the market place pulling giant vultures from the sky” — Odia Ofeimun [How can I sing?]

“Yes, Mandela, we shall be moved We are Men enough to have a conscience We are Men enough to immortalise your song We are Men enough to look Truth straight in the face To defy the devils who traded in the human Spirit” — Keorapetse Kgositsile [Yes, Mandela, we shall be moved]

“My women crushed their painted mouths On the thin hard lips of steel-eyed conquerors And my children left their peaceful nakedness For the uniform of iron and blood. Your voice went out too The irons of slavery tore my heart to pieces” — David Diop [Loser of Everything]

[On Sudan National TV, a Woman Appears in Darfur]

“maybe this is what we’ve been waiting for / millions marching down shari’ al matar / the morning of eid a massacre / i mean many sudans will be mourning / our children scattered like fallen bird feathers around the world” — Dalia Elhassan