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<h5 style="padding-left: 30px;">Chinazom Chukwudi Otubelu is the winner of the February edition of the BRIGITTE POIRSON POETRY CONTEST (BPPC) 2018 themed: <a href="https://www.wrr.ng/news/bppc-2018-february-freedom/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">‘FREEDOM’</a>. This is his third BPPC trophy in as many years.</h5>
<p>The poet, who presently studies Electrical/Electronic Engineering at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), won the contest with his entry entitled <em>‘Dead Men Walking’</em>. He beat Ayeyemi Taofeek Kehinde’s ‘<em>We Must Be Free From Free-Doom</em>’ and Ikenna Igwe’s <em>‘A Different Earth’</em> to first runner-up and second-runner-up positions respectively.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: right;">Chinazom, a Nigerian poet from Isiekwulu Village of Anambra State, is a serial winner of the BPPC— emerging tops in <a href="https://www.wrr.ng/news/chinazom-c-otubelu-is-bppc-august-2017-winner/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">August 2017 </a>and <a href="https://www.wrr.ng/news/brigitte-poirson-poetry-contest-2016-futo-poet-chinazom-otubelu-is-may-winner/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">May 2016</a> backed up with two 1st runner-up positions in <a href="https://www.wrr.ng/news/izuchukwu-wins-bppc-september-2016/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">September 2016</a> and <a href="https://www.wrr.ng/news/brigitte-poirson-poetry-contest-2017-oau-poet-emmanuel-faith-wins-february-edition/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">February 2017</a>, and other TOP 10 appearances. He was also a finalist in the <a href="https://www.wrr.ng/news/kanyinsola-ajpp-2016/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2016 Albert Jungers Poetry Prize</a>. He has received several other awards for his writings, including the FUTO WRITERS’ AWARD (2011) and the maiden edition of the KOLA MAGAZINE AWARD (2013).</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.wrr.ng/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Chinazom-Chukwudi-Otubelu-BPPC-Feb-2018-Winner-1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-34715" src="https://www.wrr.ng/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Chinazom-Chukwudi-Otubelu-BPPC-Feb-2018-Winner-1.jpg" alt="" loading="lazy"></a></p></blockquote>
<p>Below are the top 10 poems:</p>
<ol>
<li>DEAD MEN WALKING by Chinazom Chukwudi Otubelu</li>
<li>WE MUST BE FREE FROM FREE-DOOM by Ayeyemi Taofeek Kehinde</li>
<li>A DIFFERENT EARTH by Ikenna Igwe</li>
<li>WHATEVER HAS WINGS by Ngozi Olivia Osuoha</li>
<li>THE TRAGEDY OF THE RUNAWAY BOY by Kolade Malik Ademola</li>
<li>PUTRID EDOM by Mbagu Valentine(Vabec)</li>
<li>WORTHLESS IMPRISONMENT by Abdullahi Halima A</li>
<li>EQUATIONS by Titus Adeolu Adekunle</li>
<li>STANZAS OF FREEDOM by Ndifreke George</li>
<li>THEN ‘TIS NOT FREEDOM by Thamsanqa Job Mzamo</li>
</ol>
<h5>DEAD MEN WALKING by Chinazom Chukwudi Otubelu</h5>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Before the western winds, our bald beards scald in sad mud<br>
To hear the famished flood thunder like a metal thud<br>
These green lands we married have become a nagging wife,<br>
Grazed upon by footfalls of a leprous pregnant knife<br>
Amadioha! Where is the clash of thy rumbling flash?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Sweet-voiced damsels have dug their deathbeds afar<br>
To wail morrow hopes that linger like a scar<br>
Thou brave brothers of black ancestral soil<br>
Do heavens weep not that we boil like oil?<br>
Ani! Thy sacred earth now sucks the breasts of a dog</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Our soft shrivelled hands bake cake crumbs in midday sun,<br>
Beneath the beastly feet of a peeled-pawpaw-skinned gun<br>
Our mute mouths melt like snow to the roar-like whistling whip<br>
Yet, the vain rain refuse again to unzip its locked lip<br>
Ogwugwu! Have you gone for a lame walk in the woods?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Our clan is but a ghost smeared with pots of rotten ash;<br>
A pungent pin that pricks the soul and flees like a flash<br>
Nothingness has bought the magic boot that bears our foot<br>
Upon troubled mountains that stain our grains with soot<br>
Idemili! Have thy rivers given birth to deaf deserts?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Have we not, before streams, sored our knees on hills and stones<br>
That we may feel the breath to praise thy immortal bones?<br>
Are these flames fragments of a forgotten past;<br>
These walls that stretch farther than a radio mast?<br>
Young men, please, tell the gods that bedtime is long gone!<br>
Maidens, please, strike the chords of freedom once again!</p>
<p> </p>
<h5>WE MUST BE FREE FROM FREE-DOOM by Ayeyemi Taofeek Kehinde</h5>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">There is a sun beneath every dangling tongue,<br>
Like a near gale pregnant with whispering song.<br>
It rises when the heart is intoxicated with courage,<br>
Casting fear and voicelessness into bondage.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Freedom begins with the liberty to keep my hair today<br>
And the undisturbed decision to go bald the next day.<br>
It is when the finger picks the mucus of the eye to its face,<br>
And walk away without the meeting of palms on its face.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Yet, today sees sky raining icy hell on ill-named avengers:<br>
Where are Issa and Farid, the Palestinian right defenders;<br>
Tanner; Tep Vanny; Mahadine and the Chinese Ni Yulan?<br>
Speech is expensive, not by scarcity but for its boomerang.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Freedom, the blind archer has shot them into a free doom<br>
Where rulers seize the voices of scattered steep broom.<br>
Why is “freedom fighting” a green ink on the death warrant?<br>
Why has beseeching for rights worn the lapel of war rant?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">You may cage us, castrate us and strike us with your rod;<br>
The wounds are places where freedom enters the world.<br>
When there is ruin, there is hope for profusion,<br>
And we have jugged the virulent vigour of liberation.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">We must be free without oppression – the echoless oven,<br>
Why should we hibernate when the door is so wide open?<br>
We beseech a society and world where words are heard<br>
And the next day we won’t be heard to have been dead.</p>
<p> </p>
<h5>A DIFFERENT EARTH by Ikenna Igwe</h5>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Seated, relaxed, atop the cool, grass-covered rock,<br>
Stoutly jutting over the tranquil azure ocean, I stared –<br>
Transfixed, transformed, and eternally enthralled,<br>
By the magically momentous rising of the ageless sun,<br>
Ascending, gracefully, along the serene scenery,<br>
And ushering in the eagerly-expected new earth;<br>
A planet, liberated from the shackles of creed,<br>
Unhindered by the manacles of ethnicity,<br>
Eyeless to the discriminating differences in color;<br>
A globe meticulously wrapped in the cozy covers of peace;<br>
Overshadowed by the immutable display of inestimable love;<br>
A unified earth, tongue-deep in earnest equality;<br>
A cerebral civilization where the segregating walls of status are buried;<br>
Where no denizen is poverty’s prisoner; a violence-free empire,<br>
Woven with morality – scoring superbly in every ramification;<br>
I see an earth empty of foes and burgeoning with friends;<br>
Where the lambs lie securely beside the lions –<br>
Caring and sharing – all rapturously cherishing one another;<br>
A world where the natural embraces the<br>
Supernatural to form a universal positive whole –<br>
Powered by truth, painted with justice, and pulsating with freedom.</p>
<p> </p>
<h5>WHATEVER HAS WINGS by Ngozi Olivia Osuoha</h5>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">I am a pigeon<br>
With the blade of a surgeon<br>
To cut loose this dungeon.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">I am a raven<br>
Tamed and wild, I was given<br>
To reach the heaven.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">I am an eagle<br>
I am one, I cannot tangle<br>
For here is a dungeon.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">I am a dove<br>
Always on the move<br>
To consecrate love.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">So wherever the cage<br>
I am not in bondage<br>
For I am on rampage.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Though I am dry<br>
I belong to the sky,<br>
Though I cry<br>
I must always try,<br>
For whatever has wings<br>
Is destined to fly.</p>
<p> </p>
<h5>THE TRAGEDY OF THE RUNAWAY BOY by Kolade Malik Ademola</h5>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">He slaves away the earth in fright<br>
And toils the yard at night<br>
He has laboured hard in the light<br>
For hope of a day when freedom will be on sight.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">His wish is to be the Aves<br>
That soar in the vastness of the skies<br>
And not of the caged Ibises<br>
Whose shrieks only call for freedom.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">He admired the beauty of the Pisces<br>
That dive freely in the shallow seas<br>
And not of the family of the Loaches<br>
That swim round the borders of the aquarium.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">If freedom cost a fortune<br>
He would break the bank to get it<br>
But to the runaway boy, freedom is a mirage,<br>
A reality that tornadoes of bombs have shrouded.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">In the cozy cave that drips of bane<br>
The runaway boy speaks of pain<br>
Of the freedom that deprives him to be sane<br>
And configures his limbs to be lame.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">He speaks of freedom that lies not in the food he eats<br>
Neither in the water he drinks<br>
Nor in the air he breathes<br>
But painstakingly, freedom that lies in the lines of the books he reads.</p>
<p> </p>
<h5>PUTRID EDOM by Mbagu Valentine(Vabec)</h5>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">From t’is fair’st carcass call’d bondage, we desire freedom,<br>
That we by all means, might taste liberation and ne’er die;<br>
Thus shall we no more feed on the wretch’d putrid of edom,<br>
But by all certitude drink from this empty river which canne’er dry.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Though it be that we were once captivat’d from seeing the light,<br>
Now feed’st we our eyes on the flaming flames of liberation,<br>
Making out a famine where abundance lies, to our eyes so bright<br>
And a befitting feast of freedom fit for a fitt’d feast of celebration.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Thou oh freedom ‘rt the most treasur’d of all precious ornaments,<br>
And only thine name shall herald to the gaudery stem of the spring,<br>
In thine own bud shall sprout out many seeds of sweet merriment,<br>
And tender, thy softness, which giv’st increase in times of Spring.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">From t’is fair’st carcass call’d bondage, we gain’d freedom,<br>
Thus shall we no more feed on the wretch’d putrid of edom.</p>
<p> </p>
<h5>WORTHLESS IMPRISONMENT by Abdullahi Halima A</h5>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Those wings on the falcon cease to fly,<br>
My heart aches for ever asking why.<br>
How could luxury be confine in penury?<br>
How could such strength become so lowly?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">As the world daily changes her garment,<br>
We get confined in worthless imprisonment;<br>
Incarceration of struggling souls,<br>
Left for dead in shams called homes.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Our identities and legacies seem inactive,<br>
Made to think that our skin tans are less impressive;<br>
Racism reigns in every kingdom.<br>
How do we sleep on the laps of freedom?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Martin and Malcom birth a dream,<br>
That still lives but shines so dim.<br>
Our hosts gladly erode the mission,<br>
And blurred our every vision.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">We saw them vanished with every iota of liberty;<br>
And left behind the pangs of misery,<br>
But at the end of every tunnel lies a glint of hope,<br>
Where we shall rise again to cope…</p>
<p> </p>
<h5>EQUATIONS by Titus Adeolu Adekunle</h5>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">There is the first equation –<br>
a sum of two of the many variables.<br>
And then a second –<br>
the variables have coefficients and raised to powers.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The manual to her freedom are equations.<br>
“But mathematics is a language she cannot speak”.<br>
She was barely done with basic arithmetics.<br>
So it is okay to be tensed beyond units.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Like the first equation, It didn’t quite add up<br>
How after only a dozen years since her first cry,<br>
She should be traded to a man already digging his grave.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Her freedom is a mystery puzzle to be solved<br>
But like I said,<br>
“Mathematics is not a language she can speak”.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The second equations only shows her the powers –<br>
the ones that built brick bulwark of sorrow around her,<br>
Casting a spell of shadow over her young glow;<br>
And the power driving through her thighs,<br>
trickling raindrops from her eyes every other night.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">And like the helpless coefficients,<br>
Her parents were willing merchants –<br>
a product of poverty and illiteracy,<br>
Dependent functions of coveted cattle and strong ties.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Her freedom is a mathematical puzzle to be solved<br>
But like I said,<br>
“Mathematics is not a language she can speak”.<br>
And like her, there are many like terms.</p>
<p> </p>
<h5>STANZAS OF FREEDOM by Ndifreke George</h5>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Freedom is water rushing down the staircase of hills<br>
through rocky banister to moisturize the earth;<br>
zillion drops from the sky like angel’s spittle<br>
funneled into the crannies of the thirsty parched earth<br>
and the green rejoice in colourful blossom;</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">the rising of smoke from Dad’s cigar in a psychedelic dance<br>
to weight up the canopy of cloud suspended by word of mouth.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Freedom is a music we all love to dance—<br>
whoosh of the guiltless wind,<br>
chiming of birds skating outside the cage;<br>
splatter of raindrops like drums of festivals<br>
snapping of chains tired of holding back;</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">melodies of two hearts beating as one<br>
and solo from the nocturnal on permanent night shift.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Freedom is a girl child cuddled in the arms of a male,<br>
unhurt, untouched, un-abused, unharmed—<br>
and she’s free to pour on him the perfume from her yawn;<br>
old men dancing in the rain<br>
and children gather to cheer and clap.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Freedom is picking my biro to write<br>
and the inspiration is greased by the truth living in me.</p>
<p> </p>
<h5>THEN ‘TIS NOT FREEDOM by Thamsanqa Job Mzamo</h5>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">If I can’t express my vote<br>
Satisfactorily,<br>
Uninterrupted,<br>
Give it to whom I like,<br>
Then I’m still a slave.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">If I can’t kiss your white lips<br>
Passionately,<br>
Hungrily<br>
And lovingly,<br>
Then ’tis not freedom!</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Freedom is just an illusion,<br>
A bursting bubble<br>
In the eyes of men<br>
And women bound;<br>
‘Tis a fool’s delusional Paradise!</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">If corruption can prevail,<br>
Fraud runs rampage<br>
And i can’t detain it,<br>
Tame its wild trot,<br>
Stem its destructive pace,<br>
Then sorry, ’tis not freedom!</p>
<p>Otubelu takes home a N8000 cash prize, and his poem, along with all the other poems in the TOP 10 shortlist, will be automatically entered for the <a href="https://www.wrr.ng/csr/albert-jungers-poetry-prize-ajpp/">ALBERT JUNGERS POETRY PRIZE</a> (AJPP) 2018 and published in the BPPC 2018 anthology. The finalists will also each receive a certificate and free copies of the BPPC 2018 anthology, to be awarded at the Words Rhymes &; Rhythm Literary Festival 2018.</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="https://www.wrr.ng/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/BPPC-LOGO1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-34519" src="https://www.wrr.ng/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/BPPC-LOGO1.jpg" alt="" loading="lazy"></a></p></blockquote>
<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: right;">The<a href="https://wrr.ng/csr/bppc/"> BRIGITTE POIRSON POETRY CONTEST</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.</h5>
<h4 style="text-align: center;"><strong>Click here to <a href="https://www.wrr.ng/news/bppc-march-2018-solitude/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Enter for BPPC March 2018</a>.</strong></h4>
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BRIGITTE POIRSON POETRY CONTEST FEBRUARY 2018: CHINAZOM CHUKWUDI OTUBELU WINS 3RD BPPC TROPHY
