ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Yvonne Nezianya is a young Nigerian writer, (performance) poet and a final year student of Health Education at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. She writes to tell silenced stories of young girls and people facing mental health issues. Her short story, "Wonders of Spirits", was shortlisted for the K and L Prize 2020. Her works have and will appear in the Micah Anthology by Poets in Nigeria, Black Skin No Mask Anthology, The African Writers Review, Afritondo, Green Black Tales and elsewhere.
Poets Resist
Edited by Len Lawson
August 15, 2020
Edited by Len Lawson
August 15, 2020
Speechless
No one tells you that being speechless
is not an inborn trait. They don’t voice
out that, like you learnt to pay a blind eye
to your disgust when boys misplace
their hands on your body, you can unlearn
eating your words and learn that your body
is not a dishevelled hotel where a drunk can
find homage and walk out of when he needs
an alcohol refill. And then, walk back in when the
organ between his thighs announces its starvation.
You can learn that it’s okay to lose your hand till
it finds the road on the face of the man who grasped
your buttocks in the marketplace. It is okay to
pour out your voice like water from a running
tap when your uncles do not forget to bring
your growth to your notice by groping your
under-ripe breast. It’s okay to walk down the
street at night without people thinking you are
whispering consent in their ears. How would
you teach consent if you don’t learn new truths
and unlearn the biases your mother forced down
your throat?
Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
