Kingsley Dominic has won the August edition of the BRIGITTE POIRSON POETRY CONTEST (BPPC) 2018 which was themed: ‘JOURNEYING’.
Dominic beat 89 other entrants to the first prize with his rhymed poem ‘ON A STORMY SHORE’. Ogedengbe Tolulope Impact, the winner of the July edition, emerged the first-runner-up for his poem ‘I HOPE TO ARRIVE WITH A SMILE’ while ‘THE WANDERER’ by regular finalist, Izuchukwu Saviour Otubelu, came third.
Dominic, a graduate of Chemistry from Benue State University (BSU), Makurdi, is a flexible writer succeeding in poetry, prose and drama genres. He was shortlisted for the 2017 Etisalat Flash Fiction prize.
On his philosophy as a writer, he says: “I believe words have the ability to own and control the writer rather than the other way”. He is currently working on a novel titled SEVEN HOURS and has a poetry collection due for publications in 2018.
Below are the top 10 poems:
- ON A STORMY SHORE BY KINGSLEY DOMINIC
- I HOPE TO ARRIVE WITH A SMILE BY OGEDENGBE TOLU IMPACT
- THE WANDERER BY IZUCHUKWU SAVIOUR OTUBELU
- JOURNEYING IN THIS JOURNEY BY OLOLADE AKINLABI
- EARS BY THE FIREPLACE BY IDOWU KUNLERE
- A TRAVELLER COMES (A SONNET) BY EZINNE ONYEKACHI OHA
- KPACHARANYA BY NWACHUKWU PRINCE CHUKWUDINDU
- BRITTLE BY OGWIJI EHI-KOWOCHIO BLESSING
- PILGRIM’S VOYAGE BY AIRE JOSHUA OMOTAYO
- THE HALLWAY OF OUR HOME BY BLESSING OMEIZA OJO
ON A STORMY SHORE BY KINGSLEY DOMINIC
The waves tossed at me
Trying to tear me up into debrises,
“What will be will be!”
Was all that came to mind amid the crises.
How does one go from a Pythagoras
To a caricature of the Life of Pi?
Just that on this turf there’s no tiger to harass
And help a brother go by.
We paid the little we could garner
To make this trip through the dessert and drought.
Who said prosperity was softly fought?
Now corpses litter the Mediterranean’s corner.
In our quest for greener pastures,
We have become more manures,
To whet the history books
With the proverbial clue that what you seek in sokoto
Most times lies in your “sokoto”(pocket).
In our search for what’s not missing
We discover that Eskimos aren’t really on the northern poles.
That money doesn’t grow on trees anywhere.
That the Mediterranean was closer to death than Spain.
On this last voyage of mine,
I finally learn the bitter truth
That in search of what’s not lost
We often lose ourselves.
I HOPE TO ARRIVE WITH A SMILE BY OGEDENGBE
I hope to arrive with a smile,
Someday on this journey of life.
I am treading the path of Nile,
Hoping to thrive and end alive.
Someday on this journey of life,
I hope to arrive with a smile
And be welcomed home by my wife
After trudging through the last mile.
I am treading the path of Nile,
Hoping to thrive and end alive.
I hope to arrive with a smile,
Someday on this journey of life.
This path I tread is rife with strife,
Hostile strife snaring lives with wile.
Someday on this journey of life,
I hope to arrive with a smile.
THE WANDERER BY IZUCHUKWU SAVIOUR OTUBELU
I am a newborn child gasping for breath,
Sailing on a ship without a captain
I am a fire roaring in the open hearth
Like a brother in search of his long lost twin
I can’t see the sunrise- my eyes are bleary
My fate was shaped before the day of my birth
Shall I fall forty times before I complete this journey?
I am a newborn child gasping for breath
Mother believes Pharmacy suits me just fine
But Father says I’ll work wonders in Engineering
Thus I am left hanging- a broken twine
Sailing on a ship without a captain
I’m in love with Fine Arts but everyone thinks I’m insane
Pray, how many more hills will I climb before my death
On this remote island deserted in the rain?
I am a fire roaring in the open hearth
I am like the eagle that was made for the air
But instead dwells underwater, soaked to the skin
Alone on a long and winding road that leads nowhere
Like a brother in search of his long lost twin
I am a newborn child gasping for breath,
Sailing on a ship without a captain
I am a fire roaring in the open hearth
Like a brother in search of his long lost twin
JOURNEYING IN THIS JOURNEY BY OLOLADE AKINLABI
i
This journey starts from the sea-men,
Coalition of sea-men to meet the ova;
Crumple and trample in the genital’s den
And at the blink of an eye, it is over.
ii
This journey continues in the womb;
A solitude dungeon like a tomb-
Feeding from the filthy filter of umbilical
The world then is not like this, not identical.
iii
We then cross the tarmac of non-existence
To the wildly wide world called life
Where all eyes wear the mask of tense
And we crawl, walk and join the strive.
iv
In this journey are days of tasty meal
And the horrible days without a meal.
They are the nights we count the stars-
Sing songs of hope, and grope our scars.
v
This journey includes a good mourning
On a day we laugh out loud our cries
And make amusement from our mourning;
Death is not a choice, thus, we make more tries.
vi
Journeying in this journey includes me, you and us
And we all ride on the spine of time as if on a horse.
This journey includes a day we shall leave
And other sea-men will be birthed to live
EARS BY THE FIREPLACE BY IDOWU KUNLERE
Tears by the fireplace, anguish in the clay pot
Puffs of old ash weep like fizzing oil, for the young tree fell this day
by the rustler’s ruthless axe,
Tears by the fireplace, sadness, like cloves of fire, sears mortal tongues,
sorrow sours innocent tongues
The young tree which once sat,
By the mouth of the biggest water court in the heart of the thickest forest,
quietly, minding its own business,
It had dreamt of the day it would blossom into a big canopy that would give
warmth to all
All, including the games and their rustlers, for its kindness knew no colour
or bloodline,
But here it is today, cut down before its prime
its bloody sap splattered across the forest, its dreams quenched by dews of hatred,
its kindness, now a relic of a violent past,
The rustler’s strife that ended its lofty dreams respects no boundaries,
Now awaiting it in the rustler’s indifferent red flame
is the same fate that befell its great ancestors, at the same fireplace,
to burn to a second death as the rustler cooks his stolen spoils
Double humiliation!
Tears by the fireplace, anguish in the clay pot
A TRAVELLER COMES (A SONNET) BY EZINNE ONYEKACHI OHA
Wait not on kind winds to bake crumbs of cake,
For stardom gulps cups, be it booze or tea
A traveller comes; the gods are awake
To set thy sails on the sly wings of sea
Smoke fumes choke the stars; the night bird bends song
To form storms of death on thy narrow way
The tears of the sky drowns thy truthful tongue
And clouds cough stones, thy journey’s bliss to sway
Days fade to nights and moons moan like aged arms;
Suns freeze fresh, flowing streams to blocks of ice
Time breathes slow like dead woods of festered farms,
But thou shall learn the swiftest sword to slice
Fear not the ghoulish barks of ghostly roam
KPACHARANYA BY NWACHUKWU PRINCE CHUKWUDINDU
Lend me not only your ear
But let your soul be here
Fix your eyes steadily at me
As I bring you the pictures to see
That you might be smarter than a serpent
The earth is like the Tower of Babel
Filled with different tongues and labels
There are the few on locomotion
And there are crowd on commotion
Toughning potential dreams like cement
O you zealous and fervent lad
That has left your armour unclad
Kpacharanya! Lest you unhold your grip
Lest by ignorance you slip off the tip
Consider the sacrifices you’ve spent
Keep straight the way you traverse on
Envisaging the crown at the setting sun
When your heart ponders on backward thought
Remember the cause of the pillar of salt
Of which aftermath is endless torment
Beware of thorns in flowery coverage
Rocks adorned in foamy camouflage
Ignore the howling and lions’ roar
keep hold on your vision to soar
Looking out for calling voices at every moment
Note: ‘Kpacharanya’ is an Igbo word for ‘Be careful’
BRITTLE BY OGWIJI EHI-KOWOCHIO BLESSING
my father’s voice is a dark hole;
when i was six, I fell into it,
tasted his liquid darkness
and i became a light-
too bright for the prying
eyes of dawn.
in my sojourn, i have climbed
seven mountains of tears
and crossed ten rivers of pain;
but for the map on mama’s palm
i would have been long lost
in this forest of uncertainties.
So each night when my mother clasps
her palms to allow the meandering paths
rub against one another,
she is telling an angel
to carve out another conduit for me,
one that leads to many places.
mine is a brittle story,
and on days like this,
it breaks into pieces
and scatters around
like the lines in this poem-
some white, some black
but all coated with molten gratitude.
PILGRIM’S VOYAGE BY AIRE JOSHUA OMOTAYO
The sun has drowned into a rippled river
Father, dusk is a here with a grail of sunset
And its feet are stained with sands of the Sahara
Where pilgrims found a mirage to cast their net
Mother, the nights are filled with bitter birds
Whetting their beaks on my rusty roof
Through my dreams, their chirps carry broken words
Woven around my window like a silky woof
The tales of harmattan stained my lips
My feet mastered the dance of sonorous tunes
Like an acrobatic parade, they went into a frenzy of flips
As the mouth of the wind gaped into mysterious runes
Father, heave your sighs in the pocket of your face
For my arms are crossed to the salutes of Wakanda
Mother, pour your tears into an empty vase
For the bouquet is weeping at the wilting flower
The walls of my room is a graffiti of haunted photograph
Hanging on my shelf with dusty vignette
In reminiscence, carve me an epitaph
For my bed is tomb, there lies my silhouette
There are no rooms left in these lands
No elegies for my tired lips
For home is not a place made with hands
But a place where the sun and moon shine without eclipse
THE HALLWAY OF OUR HOME BY BLESSING OMEIZA OJO
So when asked why I listen
to tales about strange lands,
I answered “we all travel to places
of our choice, but we’ll soon journey
beyond dreams, perhaps I could know
of the reformed norms and cultures
before I journey the path of mortality.”
They asked why I don’t
play haunting dirges for those gone.
I replied, “I was a child when I wished
my demi-gods pleasant journey with dirges
and they never come back.
Now I am a man, I’d rather say goodnight
for there’s hope to see the sun smile
at dawn.”
And again they asked
“why I don’t bid au revoir.”
I said in reply, “it’s a subtle way
of sending a soul home untimely.”
They smiled and said
“we are sojourners,
dust is our actual home,
we’ll return someday
and hole is the hallway not greetings.
A cash prize of N8000 will be awarded to Dominic. Also, all the TOP 10 finalists will be automatically entered for the ALBERT JUNGERS POETRY PRIZE (AJPP) 2018 and published in the BPPC 2018 anthology. The finalists will also each receive a certificate and a copy of the BPPC 2018 anthology, to be awarded at the Words Rhymes & Rhythm Literary Festival 2018.
The BRIGITTE POIRSON POETRY CONTEST, 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 African poetry. Now in its third season as 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.
Click here to Enter for BPPC September 2018
