5 Poets, 1 Publishing House - The Story Of Konya Shamsrumi Collective.

A group of 5 Nigerians poets have launched a poetry publishing house, Konya Shamsrumi to majorly publish, promote and sell their poetry books.

The group, comprising of Kechi Nomu, Umar Abubakar Sidi, Funmi Gaji, Rasaq Malik Gbolahan and Richard Ali had formed a collective and launched the Konya Shamsrumi four weeks ago.

Konya Shamsrumi aims to create great poetry content, ranging from interviews to essay and poems. The publishing house also plans to publish, as a major project, two poetry collections written by Richard Ali and Abubakar Sidi and three chapbooks by Kechi Nomu, Rasaq Malik Gbolahan and Funmi Gaji. Its weekly blog interviews called “5 Questions”, has featured Unoma Azuah, Peter Akinlabi, Alexis Teyie and DM Aderibigbe.

The poets named their publishing house Konya Shamsrumi  in tribute to the Persian Sufi poet, Jalaludeen Rumi, who is strongly associated with a village called Konya (in Turkey) and his friend, Shams of Tabriz, who inspired a lot of his poetry.