Columns

by Paul Chuks...Kate’s eyes were blue as though they were molded from the sky and plugged straight into her eye sockets. The black and white spots were an added spirituality...She was black in the way the night did not mean to be.

by Mandira Pattnaik...Yet, as the years pass, my writing has been increasingly reflective of the present, the world we live in, its people, its rules. As you can imagine, my stories have been rather sad as a result. My last two fiction publications had children caught in the crossfire in an active warzone and “honor killing” practiced in India at the center of the narratives.

by Mandira Pattnaik...I understand that there is an ethic of anger — a secret code. It frequently slides into unreasonableness, and one may sometimes misdiagnose the source. It is not without peril to play with the “fire” within

by Paul Chuks...I enjoy pretending, Like when I’m at the job and My boss bands with me for A hug. I smile emphasizing I like my pay. That way, lord, I want to pretend You exist.

by Mandira Pattnaik...Like all wordsmiths, I’ve built forests from alphabets. Like all forest dwellers, I’ve been a gatherer all my life.

by Paul Chuks...This is my first poem post-depression. My therapist is not sure I’m well because I tell her the world is still grey. Yesterday, I walked past a knife without the thought of blood.

by Mandira Pattnaik Blaz photo Reading can ruin your writing career. No one says that — it is equivalent to sacrilege in the literary world. In fact, the popular advice is exactly the opposite: reading helps with writing. I’ve been hearing this ever since I can remember, even when I wasn’t writing. Will I still choose to advise against reading? Yes. Don’t get me wrong — I am advising against reading too much when you are already a writer, and not any reading by any person pic

by Mandira Pattnaik Mahmoud Sulaiman After my last column, I did not expect to talk about witnessing again so soon. In a different context though, but equally miserable and malevolent. Ukraine-Russia, India-Pakistan, and now Iran-Israel. I did not expect us to be in a long dark tunnel of anxiety so enormous that we traverse through it without knowing whither its light, whither its end. I did not foresee such a disavowal of human tragedy no matter where we stand. And surely, w

by Paul Chuks Elti Meshau Rain pattered the roof. The hall was quiet, a pin drop would have sounded like a riot. Grime faces stared at their question papers, lecturers paced the hall, more bounce added to their step — a devilish grin that seemed like the grime faces validated their mischievousness. On my seat, the wind stalked me like a stubborn ex. It removed my cap and scattered my hair that I had gripped in a rubber band. A lecturer strolled my way and held my hand as I wa

by Mandira Pattnaik UX Gun/Unsplash The full picture can never be understood. There are images, social media and narratives. It is not just about the women at the frontlines — two women in uniform were chosen to make the press briefing — but there are mothers and children and people left behind. A witness is unreliable in this context. There is our present, our today, in which there is so little of everything. Scarcity stares at opulence. We have stopped caring to regather; w

by Mandira Pattnaik Marcos Paulo Prado Besides FOMO. And besides being, well and truly, envious. There’s no Fiction Month. Nowhere in the world. The closest is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a yearly event where writers aim to write a 50,000-word novel in November. Is NaNoWriMo even comparable to Poetry Month? The answer is — no. For one, National Poetry Month is not just about poets aiming to write poetry — although a huge chunk of them do write poems, some commit

by Paul Chuks Femi Ogunlana During the mass transfer of 2008 — an occasional ritual where the government takes civil servants from one end of the country to another — your mother was transferred from Sagamu to a place where the sun mistook itself for an angry mother-hen and burned harsher than it did elsewhere in the country: Ogbomosho. The season there in January was as though God had frozen the atmosphere in the previous year and released it with the new year. The road was

by Mandira Pattnaik Briana Tozour Greetings on International Women’s Day, dear friends! I hope you’re finding ways to celebrate, no matter where you are. While this may not feel like a time to celebrate anything, let us remember that the hope and connection we foster with one another can bring comfort and light. It is not a holiday in India, where I live, and honestly, I’m baffled that it isn’t. How can we claim to honor women when several Asian nations, including China, Afgh

by Mandira Pattnaik Samuel Regan-Asante Funny what can trigger my writing on a particular day — an image; a news item; a debate on a public platform on whether arranged marriages are a fair deal; a puppy I routinely see on the road but haven’t seen in three days (Is it ill? Or was it squashed under one of the rashly-driven cars?). For example, I started the week by pausing my mindless scrolling on three lamentation posts that appeared on my timeline. In one, a poet rued the p

by Paul Chuks eniko kis That evening the world seemed platonic, everything was perfect. The walls had no crack in them. The flowers were the blueprint from which others (in the physical world) were created, aged yet unwithered, the sky — a motif of blue that filmed my ancestors reading my poems amongst themselves in heaven. You snuck into my head and sat gently like God had sent you to keep my brain company. Although you were not privy to the biological implications of cohabi

by Paul Chuks Akira Hojo Syncretism can be mistaken for something legitimate, if defined simply as the assimilation or combining of ideas into a new whole. For what history has proven it to be, it is a process of alienation of people’s culture cum profane misrepresentation of their traditions via new improvised identity that serves the purpose of imperialism and colonialism. It is mostly done with religion. The task for the colonialists, after subduing their subjects physical

by Mandira Pattnaik Sage Friedman In my life in English, so to speak, there’s a sense that if I don’t hit a certain benchmark, I’ve failed. That’s the judgment I’ve felt from American culture from the start — the expectation to assimilate, and then, when I became a writer, to “represent” the Indian American experience, the immigrant experience. Then there’s the eternal, original judgment — of my mother, my parents, their immigrant community, their many friends with advanced d

by Paul Chuks Jordan Bebek When the ulcer in the stomach disappears after a holy visitation from the prophet’s hands. Or when the vehicle tumbles thrice before landing to a crash, as though an invisible spirit launched it from the back — leaving everyone dead but you. Only that the ulcer reneged three months after the testimony and, people died in that crash. * After the trailer had crushed other vehicles — yanking them off its way — the way you imagined Goliath would David w

by Paul Chuks Gani Fawehinmi Park, located in Ojota, Lago / CC-ReoMartins In the course of Nigeria’s democracy and her historical pitfalls with its tragic actors, many activists have risen to steer Nigeria on the path of what they perceived to be true democracy. Gani Fawenhinmi was one of them. Driven mostly by his compassion for the masses, Gani, fondly called “senior advocate of the masses,” was rumored to have handled over a thousand cases, for free — what in legal terms i

by Paul Chuks Alina Fedorchenko I sprung into life as the black sheep of the family. No one told me it’d hurt. Black Sheep is the corrupted word for different. Although different becomes layered when we begin to consider whether humans differ. It is a psycho paradox that has left scholars sweating without an answer for centuries. The debate is not in the biological aspect — every human has a single unique gene encoded in them. It is in the psycho-social aspect. The bandwagon