Olúwádáre Pópóola
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Olúwádáre Pópóọla (he/him) is a 19-year old Nigerian poet, a student of Microbiology, and a Sports Writer for a media company. He writes from a city named by rocks and longs to see the world without discrimination of any form. Learning the art of imagery, his poems are up/forthcoming in Mineral Lit. Magazine, Headline Poetry & Press, Feral: A Journal of Poetry & Art, Roadrunner Review, Lumiere Review, Radical Art Review, LUMIN Journal, Versification, Cypress Poetry Journal, ang(st)zine and elsewhere. He can be reached on Twitter @Kunmi_sher.
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Recolouring Grief in the Posture of Skin
earth / brown mottles looking like countries
woven inside wool / mother's cornrows / western red cedar / morphed into blood /
timbre longings plaguing whitewash walls / where bodies hang in continuation of life / in continuation of the cotton-soft braze of desire / non- ferrous alloys / cooking pots / grieve like brass raised past longings
boys seek blood / a slice of their mother / in the face of war / streams broken into stainless steel / forced down pipes from the minefield / cluttered with earth so much / death rots and homes rust
how do we walk a road of glass when our bodies reflect a city / trapped / spit / moisten / passage /
limboed body fiddling clouds / tendering a heaviness collected in raspy sighs / unfinished unfin song / famished body thumbed into a belly / pinch-skin / it's all the same thing
when we were born / we were our futures unbroken in ceramic plates / spread out to thin film
& if maybe we knew / we could have refused living
because our lives are our deaths /
tulips spring in spring in a place fairly called spring / two lips lush the sky with such roguery / razor for fans / hush the wind that blows down a hallway flooded with fluorescent
our body /
smooth polythene / is afraid of breaking the line between a walk and a run so much our shadows can haunt us
the way we should live is the way we now sing / all black yearnings in mottled stores / simmering in its own tongue / we won't escape / blood pardons but skin breaks
woven inside wool / mother's cornrows / western red cedar / morphed into blood /
timbre longings plaguing whitewash walls / where bodies hang in continuation of life / in continuation of the cotton-soft braze of desire / non- ferrous alloys / cooking pots / grieve like brass raised past longings
boys seek blood / a slice of their mother / in the face of war / streams broken into stainless steel / forced down pipes from the minefield / cluttered with earth so much / death rots and homes rust
how do we walk a road of glass when our bodies reflect a city / trapped / spit / moisten / passage /
limboed body fiddling clouds / tendering a heaviness collected in raspy sighs / unfinished unfin song / famished body thumbed into a belly / pinch-skin / it's all the same thing
when we were born / we were our futures unbroken in ceramic plates / spread out to thin film
& if maybe we knew / we could have refused living
because our lives are our deaths /
tulips spring in spring in a place fairly called spring / two lips lush the sky with such roguery / razor for fans / hush the wind that blows down a hallway flooded with fluorescent
our body /
smooth polythene / is afraid of breaking the line between a walk and a run so much our shadows can haunt us
the way we should live is the way we now sing / all black yearnings in mottled stores / simmering in its own tongue / we won't escape / blood pardons but skin breaks
Commentary
Olúwádáre on "Recolouring Grief in the Posture of Skin":
In a period of uproar and especially in longing for tranquility, I tried weighing the heaviness of the fear of having to love a force (by that skin) that quickens death, how the consciousness of this fear wants to drive one to treat one's self as a remotely distant thing.
By that I saw how the world looks for a measure of kindness for itself, an essence it thoroughly lacks.
Assistant Editor Jeni De La O on "Recolouring Grief in the Posture of Skin":
What Chaos—who among us hasn't uttered or thought these words in this moment of great reordering? As we do the important work of refashioning the world into a place that is a little bit less cruel, a little more loving, a little more equitable, this poem begs the reader to stop. What Olúwádáre has accomplished in this piece is a moment of reflection: how do we process the world around us that we are so eager to change? What place does our history have in our present—in our future? How do we make room for the many-layered personalities and identities that exist within a community? What place does restoration have in the tapestry of justice? These are the broader questions Olúwádáre asks us to consider using clear imagery and sharp language. I hope you'll enjoy this piece as much as the rest of us at Kissing Dynamite did. I hope it stays with you, a little whisper in your ear as you return to the important work of rebuilding a society that works for all of us.
In a period of uproar and especially in longing for tranquility, I tried weighing the heaviness of the fear of having to love a force (by that skin) that quickens death, how the consciousness of this fear wants to drive one to treat one's self as a remotely distant thing.
By that I saw how the world looks for a measure of kindness for itself, an essence it thoroughly lacks.
Assistant Editor Jeni De La O on "Recolouring Grief in the Posture of Skin":
What Chaos—who among us hasn't uttered or thought these words in this moment of great reordering? As we do the important work of refashioning the world into a place that is a little bit less cruel, a little more loving, a little more equitable, this poem begs the reader to stop. What Olúwádáre has accomplished in this piece is a moment of reflection: how do we process the world around us that we are so eager to change? What place does our history have in our present—in our future? How do we make room for the many-layered personalities and identities that exist within a community? What place does restoration have in the tapestry of justice? These are the broader questions Olúwádáre asks us to consider using clear imagery and sharp language. I hope you'll enjoy this piece as much as the rest of us at Kissing Dynamite did. I hope it stays with you, a little whisper in your ear as you return to the important work of rebuilding a society that works for all of us.
