We explore folklore and faith without losing sight of the truth that poetry is also playing with language. Listen to this week’s @inthreepoems.bsky.social podcast with featured poet @saddiqdzukogi.bsky.social Push play at inthreepoems.com, or hit that follow button to find your favorite platform

@saddiqdzukogi.bsky.social talks about his preparations for writing his epic book-length poem, Bakandamiya www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/978...

"@saddiqdzukogi.bsky.social takes in orality as the heart of a history that refuses Eurocentrism, brings in praise songs, hunter songs, the Quran, and even dialogue between an animist Bori spirit and Nietzsche," writes Poetry Northwest in a review of BAKANDAMIYA. bit.ly/419hAXb

WHEN WE ONLY HAVE THE EARTH by @abdourahmanwaberi.bsky.social and BAKANDAMIYA by @saddiqdzukogi.bsky.social were featured in PEN America's roundup of books by members in 2025. Read the full list: bit.ly/3NM2X

"The masterful second collection from @saddiqdzukogi.bsky.social draws on the mythic and poetic traditions of northern Nigeria for a lyrical reimagining of the legend of Bayajidda," writes @publisherswkly.bsky.social in a Starred Review. bit.ly/4svGEnW

Chaotic energy

Southern Indiana Review spring 2025 Thirty-three Contributors Salute, Day 15: Saddiq Dzukogi Saddiq Dzukogi is a Nigerian poet based in the United States, where he is an assistant professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Instagram: @saddiqdzukogi X: @SaddiqDzukogi

- Saddiq M. Dzukogi

Prairie Schooner and UNL Creative Writing are excited to celebrate the book launch of Saddiq Dzukogi's upcoming poetry collection, Bakandamiya: An Elegy - a book-length epic poem set in northern Nigeria. Join us on Monday, December 1 at 5:30 pm in Andrews Hall's Bailey Library (room 228).

THIS FRIDAY IN LINCOLN, NEBRASKA!!!!!

Calling all Nebraska writers! The NWC's Kate Sommer Memorial Poetry Prize is open and this year's guest judge is Saddiq Dzukogi. First prize is $1000 and a feature spot in our winter issue! Details and a link to submit are at www.newriters.org/kate-sommer-... Deadline is 10/19! 🍂

Join me for virtual Mercy Street Readings on Sunday, Mar 9 at 3pm EST! Featuring Brandel Del Franco, Stephanie Hammer, Andrea Change, Maureen Alsop, Saddiq Dzukogi, John Compton & Heather Derr Smith. Hosted by Ruben Quesada. #MercyStreetReadings

Today's spring 2025 Ruth Awad Poetry Pick is “Bakandamiya XVI” by Saddiq Dzukogi: www.usi.edu/sir/ruth-awa...

"Quenching" and "Burial Sheet" by Saddiq Dzukogi | http://ow.ly/PKkU30ncbvb @SaddiqDzukogi via @EL_DIAGRAM

This week we celebrate two contributor book releases: BAKANDAMIYA: AN ELEGY by @saddiqdzukogi.bsky.social with @univnebpress.bsky.social and NOTES by Dean Rader with The Economy Press!

This is gonna be fun! @hanvanderhart.bsky.social @mitchnobis.bsky.social @grantclauser.bsky.social @jdisip.bsky.social @djvorreyer.bsky.social @katiemanningpoet.bsky.social @claudiasavage.bsky.social @josehernandezdz.bsky.social @saddiqdzukogi.bsky.social @micahjamesbauman.gosixers.online

"I live in a small semidetached duplex / and the war does not get to me. // The news is playing. / And everyone is playing games // of semantics." From "I Live in a Century of Money" by @saddiqdzukogi.bsky.social‬, author of the forthcoming BAKANDAMIYA.

We are excited to announce that this year's judge for our Summer Creative Nonfiction Contest (opening May 15) is @nezhukumatathil.bsky.social, author of Bite By Bite and World of Wonders, a New York Times Bestseller and Barnes and Noble Book of the Year. For contest guidelines, visit bit.ly/cnf25

“After a while, one has the impression that Home is simply trying to pose some questions about identity, its loss or transformation through time.” George Gömöri reviews Andrea Tompa’s Home. worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/march/h...

I’m not sure what it has to do with the new Trump administration, or the deep anxiety I feel surrounding it. I’ve been thinking about time, about the kind of enlightenment that can arise from reflection—about empathy for those who haven't yet made that shift. Anyway, here’s a poem:

Feb 6-7: ENDING THE KOREAN WAR, a virtual symposium with the 'Ending the Korean War Teaching Collective,' sponsored by Yale AMST, HIST, EALL, FMS, WGSS, ERM, RITM, & @yalewhc.bsky.social

Spent a wonderful day as a Visiting Writer with the writers at the Converse University MFA program in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Lovely to spend time with my friend Geoff Herbach who directs the program!

We’re a print journal, but we hear you: more poems on the website! Here’s a snippet from “Hanzi in the Rain” by Sean Thomas Dougherty. Read the whole poem on our website: shopoetryjournal.com/sean-thomas-...

Danez, people. Danez!!!

"They tagged you an illiterate, those idle bureaucrats. Unaware how on arid islands you memorized the twelve Gospels of Struggle." Yannis Ritsos

I have been writing only couplets for the last three years. Bakandamiya, epic poem, is also written in couplets, that form a unit of sense through image and moments, rather than through rhyme and meter. Poets, what formal engagement do you consciously employ these days?

My personal guide. Got me into and out of news. Thank you always William Carlos Williams.

Where are the African poets here?

i hope i die warmed by the life that i tried to live — Nikki Giovanni

Nearly a year ago, I wrote this poem, and I’m excited to share it with you now that it has been published by Consequence. I’m grateful that, at the very least, no one can legislate the ability to bear witness.

at too late a time no one can be on board such a ship— no one can kiss like you or the ocean approaching the rest of the night waiting world - Michael Burkard 🖤

Thank you for reading, thank you for listening, thank you for being part of my life, especially this last year~ susanrichpoet.substack.com/p/another-ye...

Thank you to the editors of WAXWING for giving three new poems of mine a home--here's one of them. Grateful to be among so many amazing writers. Here's the full issue: waxwingmag.org

I am going to be posting solely here for a while because Meta wiped me off their platforms claiming I am violating their community policy. This is the second time I am getting flagged after posting poems. Will be posting those here all through the day:

First ever photo exhibition 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

Sign up for our newsletter to receive notice of the newest books, journal issues, and upcoming events! Visit our website at www.arrowsmithpress.com then scroll down to the very bottom where you can sign up. 💌

Reminding me of one of my favorite pieces I played when I was still taking piano lessons back in the day: www.youtube.com/watch?v=d31i... #newmusic #classicalheadbang #classipunk

Dear humans, Just wanted to share something I've been quiet about, in the year of my loud self-doubt, with gratitude to @sarabandebooks.bsky.social and to many others whom I look forward to thanking in the coming months, MY HERESIES, forthcoming in April 2025.🖤 www.sarabandebooks.org/all-titles/p...

Join our editor and cofounder Carol Edgarian this week as she explores the word “grace.” Click here to watch: bit.ly/3t85Mqp #NarrativeMagazine #Narrative #AWordPlease #CarolEdgarian #grace #graces #wordsofwisdom #words #reading #writer #quotes #motivationalquotes #kindness #mercy

Tom Jenks and Carol Edgarian will dive into Baldwin’s world, offering insight on some of the sources in Baldwin’s life for “Sonny’s Blues” and on the logic and passion by which life may be meaningfully transformed into art. 📅 December 4 @ 5pm PST 🎟️ RSVP: www.narrativemagazine.com/narrative-re...

I don’t want to die disfigured under the rubble. - Mahmoud Darwish, August, Beirut, 1982 (translated by Ibrahim Muhawi)

Nothing persuades me that “in image of God” applies only to humans. I sense mountains, rivers, trees, lakes, animals, are far closer to essence of God than humans -Jung * “breathless, go to Lvov, after all it exists, quiet and pure as a peach. It is everywhere. -Zagajewski

Sarabande will publish Katie’s and my translations of Lesyk’s powerful poems about life in Bucha, Ukraine during Russian invasion. It’s available for pre-order now on their website:

Excerpt from Egress, winner of @narrativemag.bsky.social Annual Poetry Prize!

From Justin Hamm's series of erasures in his new book O Death

“Extreme Close-up” is a pojack from Terrance Hayes, then published in Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems, read by @Major Jackson on the Slowdown—now migrated here to Blue Sky, and to you. Missing my dad today and this conjures him for me.

I really do miss writing poems. And taking photos. I have been a mere human being the past several weeks. It is cool with family. It is cold without my son’s three dead goldfish. Where do the ghosts of animals go? Where?

Sit with your students in a circle. Read "You Are Who I Love" aloud, each student taking one stanza, going around and around in the circle until the poem is done. I did this recently with a poetry workshop and the room filled up with a warm, golden feeling. poets.org/poem/you-are...

Goodnight from Daniil Kharms and that moon.