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<h5>Ogedengbe Tolulope Impact has emerged winner of the July edition of the <a href="https://www.wrr.ng/csr/bppc/">BRIGITTE POIRSON POETRY CONTEST</a> (BPPC) 2018. The edition was themed: <a href="https://www.wrr.ng/news/bppc-july-2018/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">‘OF POETS AND IDEOLOGIES’</a>.</h5>
<blockquote><p>Tolulope, a Chemical Engineering graduate of the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, won the contest with a rhyming triple acrostic entitled <em>DON’T CHAIN US WITH YOUR RULES</em>. PEACEFUL WARRIORS by Gomathi Mohan and HOW A POET’S MIND WORKS by Oni Tomiwa emerged 1st and 2nd runners-up respectively.</p></blockquote>
<p>Tolulope is one of the most consistent and successful BPPC participants with several top 10 finishes, coming 3rd in April 2015, 1st in June 2016, 4th in July 2016, 7th in February 2017, 2nd in March 2018 and 7th in May 2018. This remarkable record makes him one of the few poets featured in all three editions of the annual BPPC anthologies – WIND OF CHANGE (2015), LOOPS OF HOPE (2016) and THE TRAIN STOPS AT SUNSET (2017).</p>
<p>Since he began writing poetry in 2012, his works have appeared in literary platforms including Words Rhymes &; Rhythm Poetry, Duane Poetree, Pulse.Ng, SPIC, Literary Planet, Chrysolite, and Aceword, as well as several poetry anthologies. He has received recognition from several literary organizations in Nigeria.</p>
<p>Tolulope currently resides in Benin City where he writes and imparts children through teaching.</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="https://www.wrr.ng/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Ogedengbe-Tolu-Impact.jpg"><img class="alignnone wp-image-35444 size-full" src="https://www.wrr.ng/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Ogedengbe-Tolu-Impact.jpg" alt="" width="1080" height="1080" loading="lazy"></a></p></blockquote>
<h4>Below are the top 10 poems:</h4>
<ol>
<li> DON’T CHAIN US WITH YOUR RULES by Ogedengbe Tolu Impact</li>
<li>PEACEFUL WARRIORS by Gomathi Mohan</li>
<li>HOW A POET’S MIND WORKS by Oni Tomiwa</li>
<li>WHAT I SAW by Ezinne Onyekachi Oha</li>
<li>HOW I BECAME A POET by Aire Joshua Omotayo</li>
<li>PROPHETS OF LIGHT by Tukur Loba Ridwan</li>
<li>I AM POETRY by Alexander A. Oduma</li>
<li>I WILL LIVE TO WRITE by Jamiu Ahmed Adewale</li>
<li>POIESIS by Emmanuel Udoma</li>
<li>THE NUMEROUS NOMENCLATURES OF MOTHS by Hussani Abdulrahim</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>DON’T CHAIN US WITH YOUR RULES by Ogedengbe Tolu Impact</strong></p>
<p>(Triple triolet)</p>
<p>Don’t try to chain us with your rules,<br>
For we are poets with free wills.<br>
We write our poems in our hues<br>
Don’t try to chain us with your rules.</p>
<p>We have found freedom in our tools,<br>
And we ride our words on muse’s wheels.<br>
Don’t try to chain us with your rules,<br>
For we are poets with free wills.</p>
<p>Don’t try to chain us with your rules,<br>
For we are poets with free wills.<br>
We choose the tools of art to use<br>
Don’t try to chain us with your rules.</p>
<p>See, you may mistake us for fools,<br>
Because we follow our hearts’ thrills.<br>
Don’t try to chain us with your rules,<br>
For we are poets with free wills.</p>
<p>Don’t try to chain us with your rules,<br>
For we are poets with free wills.<br>
We paint images from our views<br>
Don’t try to chain us with your rules.</p>
<p>We have seen rosy inks spilled blues,<br>
And pens suffered doctrinal ills.<br>
Don’t try to chain us with your rules,<br>
For we are poets with free wills.</p>
<p><strong>PEACEFUL WARRIORS by Gomathi Mohan</strong></p>
<p>As poet, our pen gives us prowess to be warriors with fortitude,<br>
Across nations breaking barriers, winning battles in solitude.<br>
A sword’s metre long blade, fierce and sharp when unleashed,<br>
Cannot achieve what humble tip of a nib can, when published.<br>
Destruction needs no thought, sword just breaks and slays,<br>
But to build, to ingress many a fortress, with elan the role our pen plays!<br>
To protect, restore and expose murky truth our pen keeps up its might,<br>
No matter the milieu, our pen never shies from expounding what is right.<br>
As the pen scribbles away stories of hope and success,<br>
Many lives are shielded from war and its excess.<br>
Peaceful pacts by our pens inked with wit and wisdom,<br>
Have seen it all in history, how it has saved many a kingdom.<br>
Ink flows the message across oceans to reach each continent,<br>
Pen’s power breezes through, its outreach immense and imminent.<br>
As we burn the midnight oil to sit in silence and pen,<br>
Our pen creates many an inspiring work to wreckon.<br>
Subramania Bharti, Maya Angelou, Pablo Neruda, Frida Kahlo and the Beat Bards,<br>
Didn’t their pen awaken society by inking the whole nine yards?<br>
Our pen never sheds blood or thrusts hardships upon mankind,<br>
Its quest is to seek the truth to answers, which are hard to find.<br>
When States are run as an entity making war a profitable business,<br>
It is our pen that comes to the fore to lay threadbare, its hollow messiness.<br>
Seeing innocent people at peril, our pen makes a relentless appeal,<br>
War does no good, for the State to grow wise and repeal.<br>
Our pen shakes up from within, the Zen lying dormant therein.<br>
A sleeping society awakens to the debris they are lying in.<br>
Pen heralds in harmony as its ink cadences with poetic chimes,<br>
Poets are peaceful warriors, much needed in present times!</p>
<p><strong>HOW A POET’S MIND WORKS by Oni Tomiwa</strong></p>
<p>Call it first a lagoon.<br>
Still mass with no tributary,<br>
Deep, drowning demeaning demons.</p>
<p>Think of it too as a waterfall,<br>
Restless body of splashing thoughts,<br>
Hitting the base of troubled souls —<br>
Searching for something in nothing.</p>
<p>Say it is like the sun,<br>
Rising each day in restless stirr.<br>
Giving lights to legs, stiffened —<br>
In the dark of dusk;<br>
Giant illumino.</p>
<p>Name it also a dynamo,<br>
Converting mental friction<br>
Into warmth when the world is freezing.</p>
<p>Sometimes it is perched on a drying branch,<br>
Sometimes sailing the sea of the sky<br>
Sometimes it is weaving its new home,<br>
Sometimes it is the kingfisher,<br>
That nakeds the lake of its fishes —<br>
A poet’s mind is a bird.<br>
Tearing apart the haze of the day.</p>
<p><strong>WHAT I SAW by Ezinne Onyekachi Oha</strong></p>
<p>Submerged within my soul are wise words, which my whole craves<br>
Voices whose roaring breath enslaves the caves of sunk slaves<br>
Last night, I dreamed my eyes to death before the mystic moon<br>
I saw silent silhouettes of owls breaking hens’ eggs at noon<br>
And words began to lay long bricks upon the bloodied face of the sun<br>
Amid hissing of grumpy storms like heaving athletes on the run<br>
I saw doors creak open to pass thoughts of flowing ink,<br>
Spilling fresh drops of a new dawn that dry lips may drink<br>
Like pregnant clouds that engulf crippled hills of blurred visions</p>
<p>The scorching flames charred the calm brightness of daylight<br>
And time grew swift wings like a witch on broomstick flight<br>
I gazed at its mirror and saw broken bones of an old hill<br>
The bones became words, birthing the future that poets’ moods instil<br>
Yes, I saw a stream of ghosts sowing seeds of deep muse on mountains<br>
That dogs may bark no more, when pens give life to voids of lame fountains<br>
I dared not wake, for the gods were still drunk with wine,<br>
Stitching poets’ plots in time in a bid to save nine<br>
I lay still for ages to fill the blank pages of my wandering thoughts</p>
<p>Faint rainbows surfaced to breakwaters of a pregnant morn<br>
Yet, my eyes hung shut to sleep like young teeth on a corn<br>
In the arms of a new world, I saw words weaving a basket<br>
Of stars; dumping stale songs of deaf ears in a crumpled casket<br>
I saw the oceans and the deserts making a grand toast<br>
To a new world born from the womb of a poet’s creative post<br>
The gods blessed my snoring eyes to sway away in bed,<br>
To live the times when flashy queens shall bathe a pig’s head<br>
Indeed, the skies are torn to shreds and poets’ words now fall as rain!</p>
<p><strong>HOW I BECAME A POET by Aire Joshua Omotayo</strong></p>
<p>through the nights of fading muse,<br>
and the tincture of rhythm and blues,<br>
my soul danced on the stage of stammering history<br>
with drums and lyres scribbling my story</p>
<p>through the lips of the nightingales,<br>
the gurgling gongs, and moonlight tales,<br>
solitude blared its jingles through my windows<br>
as the snores painted my walls with punching blows</p>
<p>the night’s skin crumbled in tatters of grey<br>
and its body laid in a crucible of silence’s bay<br>
where rivers burn in ruffled flaming borders<br>
as their waves crackled in fiery waters</p>
<p>my lips were blunt like the butt of a sabre<br>
as the remnant of unspoken words formed an acre<br>
of lands serenading the terrains of my mouth<br>
with letters traveling from north to south</p>
<p>my fingers bled on fields of war<br>
when the scrolls of my heart fell in shreds of gore<br>
my tongue became a pink fire rising from a tomb<br>
and the flames beaconed on the hills of morrow’s womb.</p>
<p>this is how I became a bard on blank pages<br>
when the street of my ears wore the feet of the words of sages<br>
the lines of my poetry filed into a long river<br>
and stretched into a rope wetting the fields of green</p>
<p><strong>PROPHETS OF LIGHT by Tukur Loba Ridwan</strong></p>
<p>Given a quill to scribe<br>
of diverse homes &; climes,<br>
a poet makes the world a verse<br>
on which thoughts transverse.</p>
<p>Let he be of the ages past<br>
&; his words standing time’s test,<br>
or she, of this teeming time<br>
when post-modernism at its prime,</p>
<p>they would not neglect the need<br>
to make love to the sound<br>
of souls seeking to feed<br>
their hearts with humane creeds.</p>
<p>A poet seeks &; finds freedom<br>
through the master key of words.<br>
He breaks his chain of doom<br>
by reshaping his plighted world.</p>
<p>She showers spells of sympathy<br>
on wives &; mothers whose joy<br>
drained by the pit of matrimony<br>
in the hands of a delinquent hubby.</p>
<p>Poets are prophets of light<br>
thriving through tunnels &; thorns.<br>
They are preachers who would fight<br>
the battle of voices lost to scorns.</p>
<p>The earth deserves to be nursed<br>
with views of a better place<br>
left behind the strife of breeds<br>
who toiled to repair the damaged.</p>
<p><strong>I AM POETRY by Alexander A. Oduma</strong></p>
<p>I am the voice you hear<br>
From your sweet love dear,<br>
Which like a swift sharp spear<br>
That pierces a young deer.</p>
<p>I am the segment you use<br>
The brain behind your muse,<br>
I make parallel lines to fuse<br>
And set every bottleneck loose.</p>
<p>I hold the sceptre of a Lord<br>
I give wit, wealth and word,<br>
Am more keen than a sharp sword<br>
More flexible than a boneless cord.</p>
<p>I am your true soulmate,<br>
I give you words to relate<br>
Your deep passion for love or hate<br>
And ever with you in any state.</p>
<p>I give inanimate objects voice<br>
To speak for or against a vice,<br>
In my power, I melt frozen ice,<br>
I lead men to the right choice.</p>
<p>I voyage men to places far and nigh<br>
Even beyond the sky that is so high<br>
From where they sit or lie,<br>
For I am poetry, I never die.</p>
<p><strong>I WILL LIVE TO WRITE by Jamiu Ahmed Adewale</strong></p>
<p>On a cold moonless night. I sat under my roof,<br>
Like a poet’s note waiting for the midnight words.<br>
I watched the stars fading into the gloomy clouds,<br>
The world became a secret; darkness as a proof.</p>
<p>The earth whirled, my eyes rolled like wheels,<br>
Vision became too blur to see through myself,<br>
Thoughts pilled up like books in my mind’s shelf.<br>
Nothing left, but my fingers to write what I feels.</p>
<p>I will live to write my words on the earth crust,<br>
Watch them grow into a garden of rose and fruit.<br>
For folks, friends, foes to feast together at night.<br>
Hold hands; with hearts whiter than dawn frost.</p>
<p>I will live to write my words on heaven’s chest,<br>
For the birds to fly freely without clipped wings,<br>
Sing sonorous song with symphonious strings,<br>
As the trees dance and wave their arms in crest.</p>
<p>I will live to write my words into a fervent rain,<br>
Let them flow like water into a healing river,<br>
To heal the bodies butchered by gory dagger,<br>
When throes become blood that flows in vein.</p>
<p>I will live to write my words on every silver cords,<br>
To free children from mothers enslaving eyebrow,<br>
For different hues to embrace others like rainbow,<br>
I will write till a new world is birth from my words.</p>
<p><strong>POIESIS by Emmanuel Udoma</strong></p>
<p>A thin line stands between him and his creator.<br>
Carries a carbon copy of his maker; he<br>
Breathes life and takes away, at his will<br>
Makes and breaks; a world<br>
Without form, a world of forms!</p>
<p>Sharing in his creator’s creativity; he<br>
Illuminates, heals and mends downcast<br>
And troubled minds, by<br>
Knitting mere words into images<br>
And messages of hope.</p>
<p>Lives and dies to himself daily, and<br>
For a universe he calls his.<br>
The blood spills on pages, and<br>
Bones fossilize into memories, of<br>
Yesteryears and tomorrow that never existed.</p>
<p>Turbulent waters and tempests rage,<br>
In the head and mind,<br>
Of he called the Poet. Daily,<br>
Tears are shed for things wished for; things<br>
That existed only in the mind and on pages<br>
For this world is not his own.</p>
<p><strong>THE NUMEROUS NOMENCLATURES OF MOTHS by Hussani Abdulrahim</strong></p>
<p>i.<br>
How did you paint water?<br>
In ponderance of harmony<br>
I butchered my body<br>
into beautiful colonies<br>
watched the blood flow from each tributary<br>
until I degenerated into a single saltless sea</p>
<p>ii.<br>
How did you evolve?<br>
Sieving self from society’s incessant tags<br>
creased by doubts of one’s anomalies<br>
I struggled to echo the word, LIVE<br>
beneath the strain of snarling hypocrisy<br>
where liberty’s just another way to highlight sequestry<br>
but my combative tongue chiseled her backwards</p>
<p>iii.<br>
And from society’s dementia stems complexities<br>
So for every entity lusting to sketch me<br>
for everything questioning the gaiety of sanity<br>
here, I gift you my souless colonies as libation<br>
in all its shameless, seamless ramifications<br>
and mercurial metamorphosis</p>
<p>iv.<br>
Mirrors are mean men<br>
these colonies are dark rainbows she paints<br>
reflections as inversions of my scar’s rightful niche</p>
<p>v.<br>
We do not need new names!<br>
Pray, let the night strum<br>
into fooled ears of folded men<br>
who with fire kiss what they can’t conjure<br>
who’ve no bile to withstand mutations</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Tolulope will be awarded the N8000 cash prize. In addition, his poem and those of all the other TOP 10 finalists 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 a copy of the BPPC 2018 anthology, to be awarded at the Words Rhymes &; Rhythm Literary Festival 2018.</p>
<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: center;">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 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.</h5>
<blockquote><p><a href="https://www.wrr.ng/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/BPPC-LOGO1.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-34519 aligncenter" src="https://www.wrr.ng/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/BPPC-LOGO1.jpg" alt="" loading="lazy"></a></p></blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.wrr.ng/news/bppc-august-2018/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Click here to Enter for BPPC August 2018</strong></a></h4>
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BRIGITTE POIRSON POETRY CONTEST: OGEDENGBE TOLULOPE WINS BPPC JULY 2018
