The Arts-Muse Fair

  Just For Words Arts Initiative invites spoken word poets all over Nigeria to participate in the Minna Poetry Slam 2021 and win N50,000 in cash prize.   Minna Poetry Slam 2021 consists of three rounds covering three themes. Participants will be eliminated from each round up until the final round, where the judges will pick a winner for the prize. Each participant is expected to have poems for each round. The poems must be written and performed by the original author. THEMES AND TIME LIMITS Round 1: Rape — 1 minute Round 2: Violence — 2 minutes Round 3: Mental Health — 3 minutes There are only 20 slots for participants this year. Apply now and get shortlisted. Registration for the slam is for a fee of N1,000. Payment confirms registration. Minna Poetry Slam 2021 will be judged by a panel of individual judges. For participation, send a message via any of our social media handles, email or the WhatsApp numbers below, with your full name and formal intention to parti

  T R A V E L L E R S What if There were no canons?  Never were there; countries  What if there were never wars?  And one another, we genuinely adored    What if There were no plagues?  There were no flags  There were no regions  There was no hatred  Eating deep into our hearts?    What if Between us, there were no oceans There were no seas And the humanity within us  Is all that we see?    What if There were no colours Neither white nor black  And love was the only feeling  That took us all aback?    What if We are here for a while And only the smile on our lips And the joy in our chests Can take us far miles?    What if Just what if We are all travellers Sojourning to a place  We know not a thing about?    ************ Shehu Mubarak Sulaiman is a Kano-based poet. Currently a final year student of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, his works have appeared on Konyashamsrumi, Sebuleni and Dailytrust. He is a winner

FRINGES the steps to play lie is- not to smile; chew all the tickles below your jaws even when it pinches you to laugh at the fools you’re fooling kick your legs on the ground dazzle your eyes in rolls hold your tummy on a long cough- the same way mince-pies collude call sweats to your face in many drizzles place your handkerchiefs on a hay day and allow those around to greet sorry in many miles- sleeves and pity allow them recount their tales of pneumonia and survival garner truckloads of sympathy with wails and blames after all   the world is for those whose tongue- appear in folds a hand apart for the tip a waist line for the blade...   in abraded manifestoes and in denial. TINGES some solicitude saturates- from the marrow to the vein others turn scalps, scars... i heard my mind say: those who die in wars are not the only victims they are only casualties of numbers the dailies and the government in l

Pic: Aminu S Muhammad THE END IS GONE If you hunger and thirst You are still alive! Those who kissed the lips of death are raptured! They are the smoke we saw leaving for oblivion. They are in a fortress! They are the ones With soft skins Wet lips And new lives If you feed and sleep If you love and want to be loved then, you are a soul wondering in purgatory! If your country have gods of nepotism and treachery then, you are a wall waiting to be broken! The end is gone! Every preacher in this face is a god! They have sweet lips And bitter tongue. and these gods are busy seeking for slaves and servants. Give me a coin you'll be two times richer than Dangote. Or give me two coins and you'll be ten times richer than king Solomon. This are the words Of a preacher. The end is gone! Those who gathered riches gathered enough! Like the generals in North and West Until they

Pic: Aminu S Muhammad Come here You child Of Adigun the thieving husband Lekan Get away from the lake Its pebbles' won't save you How dare you steal from Our sacred cooking pot Eating the sacrificial meat Leaving little lying in the near bottom That meat was Meant for the spiritual king Lekan You lied that the pot bellied thief Stole the meat Because the world Has been exposed to his stealing He wears worn out rags You evil child You think because your father is a chief Who steals so high You can't be given the title of a thief Just because you wear an expensive life Come here You child of lost sanity You evil being of corrupt high hierarchy Today I will lash you And your might of wealth Won't catch you away It won't dare come near ***** HANEEFAH ABDULRAHMAN is currently a 300 level student of English and Literary studies at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. She is the 2020 Editor 1 of T

Pic: Aminu S Muhammad ...A Dance at Naira-Night... All I see are the miscalculated feet In processional mourning of the eerie beats from a native drum The hands of the elders are masterpieces Full of the rhythmic sounds that play at the tomb Of the village youths. II Let it not be put under the tongues of the cowards The elders of our age had traded the cult of decency for a youthful lust. Beyond this gloom of loss, I will announce the reign of reasoning to halt the culture of hypocrisy Beyond this tirade of anguish, I will declare the revolution of thought Towards a regeneration of clannish love Beyond this era of dirge, May these gods miss their path to alter the fate of our promising 'morrow. A Watch Upon the Night's Stars And when the virtuous grin transmuted to a sham is greeted with a loud ecstasy By my puerile clans, I took a chance, towards the dawn of our nights, to stride along the confluence

Pic: Aminu S Muhammad Home Blues  The storms that captured our homeland announced no preface  From every cloud Only torn narratives we gain   Now There are no gravities for postscripts Stranger  Stranger, The Past should not be a portal  She is a pariah Take my sins to the cemetery There they should abide  Pose them to the world  And unleash every Blue That lived That is living  That will be living  State of the Heart I am a cloud  Death is my fruit  The grin I grin hides the earth of the grief And only in the heart you can see the grief  You can't voyeur at the heart Don't zoom my earth to your heart  I know my earth is walking through shards I know there are dungeon hiding the heights of its gaits It is the nakedness of time at the earth square  Time lives no storm alive They say the night loves my tears They say tomorrow is in throes They say the faith in the fate has dimmed They say the

Pic: Aminu S Muhammad Japanese language petals hover river flows and drains On the tea cup nankeen trickles cicada sings monk’s semblance rustle of trees Letter for a Kurd Roj Light cloaks the flowers in the wind, even in the silence, tell to souls it message lethargy doesn’t tell to your dragged and tomb soul on the cross of your sword ear the valley of the dead from far away in the garden, a drop after rain in the sun of your glance şev Esman, stêr, mang. Taught me: sky, star and moon the poetry shows us our illiteracy, said while seeing the stars who don’t know to read the night, couldn’t read himself sounds in the head fade away on an infinite remembrance each time clangs on an insistence to breath             sleepless do it:                                                 vibration in the window                                                 bird’s absence                                      looking for a set point