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<blockquote><p>Kolawole Samuel Adebayo has emerged the winner of the<a href="http://wrr.ng/authorpedia/call-for-submissions-brigitte-poirson-poetry-contest-2017-april-the-mental-health-silence/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> April 2017 edition</a> of the monthly Words Rhymes &; Rhythm backed BRIGITTE POIRSON POETRY CONTEST (BPPC) on the theme ‘KNOWING SELF: THE MENTAL HEALTH SILENCE’.</p></blockquote>
<p>Adebayo’s metaphor-laden poem, ‘death is a deliverance’, beat ‘BREAKING A FALL’ by D. E. Benson and ‘AN ELEGY’ by Aderonmu Joseph Ayotunde to first-runner-up and second runner-up positions respectively in a keenly contested edition.</p>
<p>Adebayor, the first in a family of five children, is an Agricultural Extension and Communication Technology student at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State and ardent lover of poetry who believes that “words are one of the world’s greatest assets”. He began writing poetry in January 2014 and has since had his work widely read.</p>
<p>His victory comes only one month after he made the top 10 list for the first time, clinching the 10th spot of the March 2017 edition of the contest.</p>
<p>Below are the top 10 entries:</p>
<ol>
<li>death is a deliverance by Adebayo Kolawole Samuel</li>
<li>BREAKING A FALL by D. E. Benson</li>
<li>AN ELEGY by Aderonmu Joseph Ayotunde</li>
<li>SAVED BY THE SUN by Justice Gift Ogochukwu</li>
<li>IMAGES by Alade Toheeb Oluwatoyin</li>
<li>MUSINGS OF A BROKEN SOUL by Wisdom Nemi Otikor</li>
<li>FAME FROM WATERS by Mesioye Johnson</li>
<li>FROM BLADE TO BLACK by Dhee Sylvester</li>
<li>notes to self by Ama Udofa</li>
<li>AFTERMATH by Jonathan Otamere Endurance</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>death is a deliverance <em>by Adebayo Kolawole Samuel</em></strong></p>
<p><em>(of songs that heavy souls sing of death…)</em></p>
<blockquote><p>i cross my legs<br>
one upon the other<br>
and drink memories into me<br>
and sing songs like dirges and elegies.</p>
<p>i think of heartbreaks<br>
and my art breaks loudly<br>
like how this poem will soon break<br>
into fragments in the middle of its alley.</p>
<p>how i sold firewood<br>
to fend for four boys and an ailing mother.<br>
how my work went into darkness— mother died.<br>
and how Rose left me in the lurch.<br>
it is true. roses are blue,<br>
and cold too!</p>
<p>i drink more memories<br>
into my belly of unspeakable words<br>
and my heart becomes like a thousand valleys<br>
of shadows of death and dried bones and swords.</p>
<p>and this war rages on within me.<br>
i smile to my neighbour every morning<br>
and i kiss my wife into reckless abandon.</p>
<p>but i am losing this war within<br>
and one sturdy black rope is leading me<br>
to the mango tree behind our small yard.</p>
<p>and i am thinking “when do i go?”<br>
“eventide or midnight?”</p>
<p>i am singing myself a threnody:<br>
“death is a deliverance. O death is a deliverance…”</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>BREAKING A FALL <em>by D. E. Benson</em></strong></p>
<blockquote><p>i<br>
sitting on a branch<br>
in company of dusk<br>
a soul opens<br>
heavenwards<br>
to share secrets<br>
only his thought<br>
and the air can hear</p>
<p>ii<br>
a mild breeze responds<br>
speaking the tongue<br>
of leaves</p>
<p>it says;<br>
oracle speaking in the tongue of leaves,<br>
nothing is</p>
<p>iii<br>
the soul concurs<br>
and jumps<br>
off the branch</p>
<p>but a kind noose stretches<br>
to catch him<br>
around the neck . . .</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>AN ELEGY <em>by Aderonmu Joseph Ayotunde</em></strong></p>
<blockquote><p>You picked up your own soul like a peg<br>
and wrung it in a loop you made for yourself<br>
till you saw the stars in their celestial conglomerate<br>
and you can no longer look back to wave goodbye</p>
<p>I still reminisce the night we sat and watched<br>
the dying embers of the cold harmattan<br>
and we played host to the frigid touch of nature<br>
never knew of your appointment with the slaying monster</p>
<p>Right under the shade of the big Iroko tree<br>
we drew a world of our own out of thin air<br>
we rode and journeyed through it on our horses of words<br>
but now you’re lost in a voyage with no route to trace you back</p>
<p>Your smile was enough shadow for every of your devises<br>
how I fell under the deception of the sweet wine we poured down<br>
as you hid your pain gracefully each time you raised up your cup<br>
never knew you left even while you are still around</p>
<p>I was around all day you should know<br>
we could have worked hand in hands<br>
on those nights that seemed darkest<br>
together we could have walked us out this grief</p>
<p>But you left me with memories I can’t touch<br>
wasted dreams, thwarted desires and tangled wishes<br>
the marks on your neck will stay with me<br>
and ignite always the deceptiveness in smiles.</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>SAVED BY THE SUN<em> by Justice Gift Ogochukwu</em></strong></p>
<blockquote><p>Yesterday, i climbed up the cliff of my neck to jump off,<br>
to let the wind expel me from my body<br>
before it plunges and sinks to the bottom of forgottenness.</p>
<p>But the dying sun on the far bank winked at me.<br>
He told me that he is an ogbanje,<br>
that journeys death’s canal nightly<br>
until god’s water breaks;<br>
that death is a mute madman blacker than darkness,<br>
with a mouth that stinks more than life;<br>
that there’s no peace in his embrace,<br>
only suffocating stillness.</p>
<p>He told me that he knows about depression,<br>
of how a man grows into a sad boy<br>
and lives in a corner of his body,<br>
digging for the meaning of life in his sores, opening his veins<br>
so that the voice of his blood can reach the ears of god<br>
till he begins to find faith in emptiness.</p>
<p>“I find god in many things:<br>
in petals that smile at me,<br>
in portraits of my ephemeral life on canvasses of seas,<br>
in seeing myself in the eyes of lovers.</p>
<p>Search! You’ll find paths in eyes<br>
that lead to love poems.</p>
<p>Do not be fooled by the epitaph ‘rest in peace’,<br>
stillness is not peace,<br>
dying is overrated”.</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>IMAGES <em>by Alade Toheeb Oluwatoyin</em></strong></p>
<blockquote><p>Some images walked with their heads<br>
Some had countless limbs<br>
Shadows bled in the centre of a Battle<br>
Silhouettes stood with no visible images<br>
Horrible masks faces wore<br>
The life of abnormality they lived<br>
Are they deities?</p>
<p>Rainbow stood<br>
Amidst a torrential rain<br>
Afar was a tempest<br>
‘Strip yourself’<br>
‘Run to the widest forest’<br>
‘Eat your defecation’<br>
Strange voices echoed</p>
<p>Images vanished.<br>
My hands were chained<br>
My legs were shackled<br>
Before me stood an ‘agbomola’<br>
With an amulet and a magic wand<br>
He sang incantation and chants of jinns<br>
“What happened to me”?!</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>MUSINGS OF A BROKEN SOUL <em>by Wisdom Nemi Otikor</em></strong></p>
<blockquote><p>How do you live in a body that curses you?<br>
Do you make your skin a sanctuary of whoredom<br>
And drown your being in a prayer of questions?<br>
Or make your soul a graveyard of guilt<br>
feeding your corpse with the foreskin of your shame?</p>
<p>There is a war in my head<br>
A world of echoes and voices.</p>
<p>Mum says these are the demons<br>
Come to feed off my soul.</p>
<p>She says ‘pray them away son,<br>
Least they dwell longer.’</p>
<p>But this body is a senile stranger<br>
A forgotten song of a broken dawn.</p>
<p>My soul is a wandering feather<br>
Home is where the wind calls her.</p>
<p>‘Pray this away son’ she says<br>
‘Least your soul burn in hell’</p>
<p>But mum does not know<br>
Every day is a shade of hell.</p>
<p>My soul is burnt church<br>
My body is a tomb.</p>
<p>And these wars in my head<br>
How long before they win?</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>FAME FROM WATERS<em> by Mesioye Johnson</em></strong></p>
<blockquote><p>When you see a man coloring his voice on a burning tongue<br>
now lost under feet of storms like a bird without wings,<br>
when you see a woman disown her smiles in a room<br>
held by wailing walls rising into a home dead of honey taste,<br>
when you see boys keeping their worries under their armpits,<br>
checking how it smells at interval at a riverbank of their tears,<br>
and girls finding survival in a pillar undulating under a man’s knicker,<br>
make them a surviving story for others, think of how heavy<br>
loss is on women who weigh absence, think of losing a dream<br>
to nights embracing stars with claws, think of what makes a man<br>
wish to have tides as his mother forever.</p>
<p>depression comes in shades:<br>
1. forgetting one’s self in a world of sighs.<br>
2. falling, rising, falling, falling in one’s self, and floating in dead things.<br>
3. wishing the soul dies and the body, a corpse that breathes.</p>
<p>A man thought about fame, sought his heart, everywhere<br>
and wishes to peel his name into magic of loud waves:<br>
his body is a camp of fire and everywhere called safe,<br>
he knows how miracle becomes a maiden name of rivers<br>
when burning stands like the shadow of devil in places<br>
where lost boys fuel their mothers with absence,<br>
he remembers today’s sermon that ,“man shall not live by bread alone…”<br>
and turned a Lagos lagoon to the mouth of God where he can feed<br>
on life, he forgot everywhere is fiercely hungry, even waters,</p>
<p>so when you become a body worn in different shades<br>
remember dreams in the throat of a river, and Orji , and how fame<br>
comes through dissolving in water. So when everything dies, live!</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>FROM BLADE TO BLACK<em> by Dhee Sylvester</em></strong></p>
<blockquote><p>I cut myself in three different places,<br>
just to feel the taste of my own skin.<br>
(blade)<br>
Like sand sprinkled with salt,<br>
the gritty taste was as bitter,<br>
as the metallic rust of my toxic blood.<br>
(bleed)<br>
Each swipe of the blade was a solemn tribute,<br>
to a depressing sequence<br>
of needles, pills, and booze.<br>
(blues)<br>
Death is a whore in a gray coloured hijab;<br>
and maybe it’s true that i act the horny arab<br>
better than most horny arabs.<br>
(bliss)<br>
mirth is a jester’s face on the sleeves<br>
of a bleeding wrist;<br>
but each cut was a pleasurable thrust,<br>
and each sprout of blood was an epiphany,<br>
of my own melancholy.<br>
(bleak)<br>
dying but ever smiling,<br>
i found solace in solitude,<br>
and learnt how to laugh,<br>
on the crossroad of two chronic hells.<br>
(black)</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>notes to self <em>by Ama Udofa</em></strong></p>
<blockquote><p>i.<br>
i am a fading sigh of everything i long for<br>
nothing more than just a storeroom for broken tools and rejected toys.</p>
<p>i am an echo</p>
<p>of a lost voice crawling out from withered lips<br>
a scream reduced to a whisper<br>
struggling to survive outside blistered lips.</p>
<p>i am the faded image in a polaroid<br>
of a starry eyed kid mouthing questions into thin air<br>
with shards of broken mirrors<br>
hanging from his mouth</p>
<p>I am mimosa learning to fold into myself,</p>
<p>I am a verse of dirge<br>
chanted in defiance to the sky:</p>
<p>sadness is an microphone to dirges of broken souls and unwanted ghosts<br>
tears are tributaries leading to deserted lips and blistered tongues<br>
love is a mirage – close for you to see, too far for you to ever reach<br>
pain is grey paint on teeth that no longer know the road to a smile…</p>
<p>ii<br>
I am a handful of dust<br>
fighting desperately against the wind<br>
searching for home inside weakened fists</p>
<p>I am a bag of unyielding bones bent by stones<br>
and sticks and spades, yet not broken.<br>
Slashed at by blunt knives, yet not cut open.</p>
<p>I am a candle fire<br>
burning my body to stay alive<br>
dying to give light<br>
yet living still.</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>AFTERMATH <em>by Jonathan Otamere Endurance</em></strong></p>
<blockquote><p>There is an empty music in the throat of a boy<br>
Saying: Bawa!, Bawa!, Bawa! — his father’s name.<br>
His voices are a bird finding its parents<br>
In the outskirt of an abandoned war.<br>
His breath is a tornado rocking a city<br>
Searching water in the dryness of broken streams.<br>
This is an aftermath of war<br>
It tells of how a boy, say 16, is a drop of bitter wine<br>
Trapped in the bottle of broken memories<br>
And the crimson of roses marking his father’s grave.<br>
How sweet is it to be a wing<br>
Trapped in the mouth of wind<br>
And cadaver of bodies weaving into<br>
A casket of his beloved?</p>
<p>He is trying to weave his broken bones<br>
Into the dances of intoxicated butterflies<br>
And dust his body from the web of sour memories<br>
Holding him to the music saying: death, death, death.<br>
This is what memories are made of:<br>
It is a picture of a boy whose heart<br>
Is a map leading into dark places,<br>
Say insomnia—loneliness—suicide…</p></blockquote>
<p>Adebayor takes over from the reigning BPPC champion, Izuchukwu Saviour Otubelu, who <a href="http://wrr.ng/authorpedia/brigitte-poirson-poetry-contest-2017-izuchukwu-saviour-otubelu-emerges-march-winner/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">won the March 2017 edition</a>, his second victory in the history of the contest. He will be awarded the top prize of N7000 cash, a certificate, and books, while.</p>
<p>All the poems in the TOP 10 will be automatically entered for the ALBERT JUNGERS POETRY PRIZE (AJPP) 2017 and published in the BPPC 2017 anthology. Each poet will also receive a certificate and free copies of the anthology at the Words Rhymes &; Rhythm Literary Festival 2017.</p>
<blockquote><p>“This season, more than any before it, judging the entries was a painfully sweet task because the poets evidently dug deep, producing strings of original metaphors that cannot be overlooked. It proves that the issue of mental health is one that needs to be spoken of more often, more loudly, and by more people.<br>
Truth be told, more than 30 of the over 100 entries deserve to make the top ten list. However, like in every contest, someone must be a winner. So I say congratulations to all those that participated, especially those who made it to the winners list. —<em><strong> Kukogho Iruesiri Samson</strong></em></p></blockquote>
<p>The <a href="http://wrr.ng/brigitte-poirson-poetry-contest-bppc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BRIGITTE POIRSON POETRY CONTEST (BPPC)</a>, a brainchild of Words Rhymes &; Rhythm (WRR), is a monthly writing contest aimed at rewarding the under-appreciated talent of young Nigerian poets. It was instituted in February 2015 in honor of Brigitte Poirson, a French poet and lecturer, editor, who has over the years worked assiduously to promote and support of African poetry. Now in its third season, and being one of the few credible contests for poets, the BPPC has since grown to be one of country’s most popular, especially among the younger poets.</p>
<figure id="attachment_4625" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4625" style="width: 702px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://wrr.ng/authorpedia/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/BRIGITTE-POIRSON-POETRY-CONTEST-BPPC-SEASON-III-2017-.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-4625" src="http://wrr.ng/authorpedia/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/BRIGITTE-POIRSON-POETRY-CONTEST-BPPC-SEASON-III-2017--1024x475.jpg" alt="BRIGITTE POIRSON POETRY CONTEST (BPPC) SEASON III, 2017" width="702" height="326" loading="lazy"></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-4625" class="wp-caption-text">BRIGITTE POIRSON POETRY CONTEST (BPPC) SEASON III, 2017</figcaption></figure>
<p style="text-align: center;">NOTE: Submissions are being received for the MAY 2017 edition on the theme: <em>‘THE 21ST CENTURY WOMAN’</em><br>
<a href="http://wrr.ng/authorpedia/call-for-submissions-brigitte-poirson-poetry-contest-2017-may-the-21st-century-woman/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>CLICK HERE TO ENTER YOUR POEM</strong></a></p>
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BRIGITTE POIRSON POETRY CONTEST 2017: FUTA POET, KOLAWOLE SAMUEL ADEBAYO, IS APRIL WINNER
