Free E-poetry Book

If you live in Germany, Nigeria, United States, Australia and Norway, you can have a free e-copy of my recent poetry book A FLAT WORLD. This is in recognition of the number of visitors to this blog from these countries and for the many students who are taught some of my poems, notably GLOBAL VILLAGE and THEY CAN SPEAK ENGLISH. All you need to do is to email me at africanpublicpoet@gmail.com. Please indicate if you are a student (give the name of your school). Happy reading!

NEW POETRY BOOK

  

This is my latest poetry collections titled A FLAT WORLD. It consists of poems that are political in nature and may be of interest to global politics. Ismael Bala, a poet and critic and lecturer in Literature as the Bayero University Kano, Nigeria has this to say about the new book.

More than any other recent collection of poems, Yusuf Adamu’s A Flat World shows that the nexus between poetry and politics is not limited to such situations where the poet becomes politically involved in an explicit way. The book underlines the fact that all cultural expression is

and can be related to the social and political context in which it is conceived and produced.    

Taking a cue from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous saying that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”, the poet has further cemented his place in the contemporary Nigerian poetic scene that poets are somewhat ahead of their society in anticipating new mode of political perception and consciousness. The new perception is here crystallized seamlessly and creatively into the overall metaphor of these poems.  

EL MINA CASTLE

The inhumanity of man to man

Mercilessness and hopelessness
Treachery and cruelty of the highest order
Was displayed in the brutality of El-mina

I wept and bled profusely in my heart

I shed unquantifiable tears of agony
When I saw how African peoples were
Dehumanized and abused with impunity

I was at the male and female dungeons

In a point of no return, a point of despair
They are hot, stuffy and suffocating
Congested in most unhygienic manner

How on Earth can any sensible human

Treat fellow human in this unkind manner?
Slave masters are indeed raw brutes
They are horrible monsters and murderers

Africa and Africans have been cheated

Today, slave masters have turned away their heads
Should we just lament and complain each day
Or should we demand for reparation?

Transient Saints

Tradition It Is Becoming
When Power Is Snatched From Your Hands
When Your Influence Is Gone
When You No Longer Have A Say
When You Are No Longer Acting On Stage
You Are Accused Of All Wrong Doings
"Past Administration" You Are Labelled
Any Little Mistake Is Yours


Those In Power Think They Are Better
In Fact They Want To Be Seen As Saints
But Saints Are Made By Their Actions
Saints Never Accuse Others To Hide Their Weaknesses
Saints Are Careful Not To Blow Their Trumpets


They Are Judged By Prosperity
Never Define Their Sainthood
Their Good Deeds Tell Who They Are
Those That Now Call Themselves Saints
Will Not Remain As Saints When They Leave Office
Nay They Will Also Be Like Their Predecessor,
Sinners.

When you looked at me that way

When you looked at me that way
With your beautiful unblinking eyes
Its narrative seem to suggest accusation
But I am not a hideous monster
Who breaks people’s heart and am not ungrateful


I did not break your heart my dear
You shouldn’t now look for vengeance
I have given you every chance you know
You refused to open up and I fear


You concealed your deep love for me
Now that I realised you do really love me
I felt not only cheated but also betrayed


So stop looking at me like that
You ruin your chances your self
You also ensure you ruined mine
Let the narrative be reviewed and revised

23/1/2007

Are you going to give up?

“Are you going to give up?”
Not yet my dear, but am getting tired

I will hold on for a while longer

Until I make you a rainbow

And give your soul a lift

Comprising everything that stands on my way

So that when I finally give up

You would graciously remember my courage!


11/12/06

A CIRCLE

The ancient Sumerian and Egyptians
Invented writing to keep record
If not for the letters of the alphabets
Nothing could have been written


But for those who draw and design
A circle is as important as ABC
Straight lines, triangles, squares or any shape
Are the building blocks of geometry
Lines are to geometry what letters are to words

18/11/2006