Black Girl, White Girl by Kojo Laing

Ampa I used to walk through the streets with a black girl and a white girl and they both looked exactly alike: high cheekbones, slimmish, go...

999 Smiles (to Guy Warren) by Atukwei Okai

nine hundred and ninety-nine smiles plus one quarrel ago, our eyes and our hearts were in agreement full that still The sun rises in the Eas...

Totems by Ama Ata Aidoo

  I came upon an owl at the crossroads blinking with confusion greater than mine! Bird of doom. Bird of promise. Fluorescent lightning on a ...

News by Ayi Kwei Armah

Yesterday there was another attempted coup. People are still running blind targeting the latest scapeleaders in the game of neocolonial chai...

Seed Time by Ayi Kwei Armah

  To the hot-eyed hustler urging speed over preparation, saying knowledge of self yea probing the universe fine digging connections in betwe...

Had Death Not Had Me in Tears by Kofi Awoonor

  Had death not had me in tears I would have seen the barges on life’s stream sail. I would have heard sorrow songs in groves where the road...

The First Circle by Kofi Awoonor

  1 the flat end of sorrow here two crows fighting over New Year’s Party leftovers. From my cell, I see a cold hard world. 2 So this is the ...

Afro-American Beats III: An American Memory of Africa by Kofi Awoonor

Black as my night, anonymous here my death in Elizabethville was your death. Blood shed in Sharpeville was shed before in Ulundi Alabama, Me...

At the Gates by Kofi Awoonor

  I do not know which god sent me, to fall in the river and fall in the fire. These have failed. I move into the gates demanding which war i...

Easter Dawn by Kofi Awoonor

  That man died in Jerusalem And his death demands dawn marchers From year to year to the sound of bells. The hymns flow through the morning...

Lovers’ Song by Kofi Awoonor

  Call her, call her for me, that girl That girl with the neck like a desert tree Call her that she and I will lie in one bed. When you went...

The Sea Eats the Land at Home by Kofi Awoonor

  At home the sea is in the town, Running in and out of the cooking places, Collecting the firewood from the hearths And sending it back at ...

Song of War by Kofi Awoonor

I shall sleep in white calico; War has come upon the sons of men And I shall sleep in calico; Let the boys go forward, Kpli and his people s...

The Search by Kwesi Brew

The past Is but the cinders Of the present; The future The smoke That escaped Into the cloud-bound sky. Be gentle, be kind, my beloved For w...

Oblivion by Ellis Ayitey Komey

  I want to remember the fallen palm With whitening fluid of wine Dripping from its hardened belly In this forest of life. I want to remembe...

The Change by Ellis Ayitey Komey

Your infancy now a wall of memory In harmattan the locusts filled the sky Destroying the sweat put into the field And restless seas shattere...

Sahelian Earth by Tijan Sallah

  This season is for the baobabs. Baobabs are princes of height. Their swollen feet command A whole empire under earth. Above the baobabs, S...

The Coming Turning by Tijan Sallah

The coming is the turning, Weep not like birds With scattered nestlings. We know it By the silence of our children And the unsettled of our ...

Isatou Died by Lenrie Peters

  Isatou died When she was only five And full of pride Just before she knew How small a loss It brought to such a few. Her mother wept Half ...

Parachute Men by Lenrie Peters

  Parachute Men say The first jump Takes the breath away Feet in the air disturbs Till you get used to it. Solid ground Is not where you lef...

One Long Jump by Lenrie Peters

  One long jump From the early days When the face was like a globe Round, revolving, limitless Sharp incisive like a probe And eyes which co...

We Have Come Home by Lenrie Peters

  We have come home From the bloodless war With sunken hearts Our boots full of pride – From the true massacre of the soul When we have aske...

Song by Lenrie Peters

  Clawed green-eyed Feline of night Palsy-breasted Selling old boot On wet pavement In hour-glass baskets Coconut bellied Unyielding copra G...

Homecoming by Lenrie Peters

The present reigned supreme Like the shallow floods over the gutters Over the raw paths where we had been, The house with the shutters. Too ...

Love in the Plural by Mukula Kadima-Nzuji

  neither this sobbing ocean in the moon of your swelling voice nor the milky vapour on the window of my waking nor this flood of men in the...

Incantations of the Sea: Moando Coast by Mukula Kadima-Nzuji

Shocks of dizziness my waves, my fears of the ocean on the salty strand of my desire. Shocks of carnal dreams my heaps of loosened cliff in ...

A Fistful of News by Antoine-Roger Bolamba

  The hills hunch their backs and leap above the marshes that wash about the calabash of the Great Soul Rumours of treason spread like burni...

Portrait by Antoine-Roger Bolamba

I have my gri-gri gri-gri gri-gri my calm bounding awake clings to the wavy limbs of the Congo never a stormy passage for my heart bombarded...

My Head is Immense by Charles Nokan

My head is immense I have a toad’s eyes A horn stands on the nape of my neck But a magical music surges from me. What tree exhales such rare...

Poems from Herbe féconde (1973) by Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard

  1 We are men of the new world a tree prompts us to harmony A tree whose fruit is pulpy It isn’t the tree of good or evil but that of concu...

Earth and Sky by Joseph Miezan Bognini

  Earth and sky are infinities Where our cries cannot venture I have fixed my head between two stones Seeking the Shelterer in vain. Only yo...

My Days Overgrown by Joseph Miezan Bognini

  My days overgrown with coffee blossoms, My childhood has lost its meaning. The hatred one has eaten Can never be destroyed. Misfortune, I ...

Fantasy under the Moon (Blues for a muted trumpet) by Emmanuel Dongala

I climbed towards you on a ray of moonlight that filtered through a hole in my straw-thatched house When I had reached the smiling arch of y...

Letter to Edouard Maunick by Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard

  I knew it from the moment I heard of your coming The Congo couldn’t leave you intact He who bears the bites of a crazy lover Like you I be...

End of Flight by Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard

  I At last man has seen the death of the free bird Over the sands mingled with sea-wrack The nude-necked predator showed himself Beating hi...

Complete Analysis of "Ours to Plough, Not to Plunder" by Niyi Osundare

Introduction "Ours to Plough, Not to Plunder" by Niyi Osundare is a poignant and thought-provoking poem that resonates deeply with...