From Saddiq Dzukogi ‘s stellar poem, “I Live in a Century of Money,” to Elly Katz’s “Three Poems” which were shortlisted for this year’s Isele Poetry Prize, check out our top ten most popular poems of this year.

Kpo Fire | Marvellous Igwe 

“You could tell the garden city was about to get on fire just before it burst into fire. Not the usual kind of burning, /
just a slow simmering in the wind. Soot filling every cathedral of lungs like incense before an altar. That is to say, /
we had to live in nose masks for weeks.”

I Live in a Century of Money | Saddiq Dzukogi

“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. However you slice it, / there are children’s skulls split open like blossoms. / How else can I say this for the deranged to listen? / I live in the century of money. In the country of money.”

Three Poems | Ferdinand Emmanuel Somtochukwu

“Wasn’t it Sunday Adelaja who said, / To live is to die. To die is to live? / My heart hovers around this paradox / of being, so I live to remember, / & I remember, to breathe.”

Two Poems | Emmanuel Alobu

“I’ll be down here again at dawn, before the birds, / to smell the bloom; Love, Bliss. Peace, Goodwill.
Purity, Contentment. / To be like grandma, I do this /flora ritual / to smile, wild: / say, my life, a groomed nosegay
say, my being, the bride; / candlelit eye, summer-view diastema.”

Sky Blue Nails | Tayla Paige

“Sky blue, the colour of my nails, for old time’s sake / and for something to feel beyond myself when / back to the grind where the air is controlled / by a remote / remote heads and chairs / remoteness / as the new world order. Only boardroom blues here. / Only stifling, stiff, vaped air here.”

Five Poems | Jennifer E. Hudgens

“I want to tell / my mother she is the reason for her loneliness. I want to swallow tongues & eyes / & garish lacquer that still keeps my eyes pried-wide open. As if any god might be able / or at least willing to hear prayers of a life not much for living. I want to unravel the deep & unknowing.”

Three Poems | Celeste Colarič-Gonzales

“following hospital orders / we don’t bathe you / for weeks / until / your umbilical cord stump / atrophies naturally / once / tumescent white / maggot-like / clamped life convulsing / to a / still / now shed snakeskin / shriveled translucent / ruby-russet / sinewed blood-innards / dried dead / how many hands / have / caressed / your silken hair / burrowed noses / into your petaline / scalp / inhaled your scent / swallowing / that new baby smell.”

Three Poems | Elly Katz

“I was beautiful as I spun / to my cells’ sputtering spells / medley of millennial pop, grating blender at max / slam / of cherries, overripe bananas and yogurt / into wondrous froth.””not of that dalliance between me / and primrose air / not of that unthought posture / embodied outside brackets / of the verb “stand” before voting booths, cafes, storefronts / not of my racing feet only outpaced / by my racing heart / at a swipe right to Tinder.”

Two Poems | Johannes Shikongo

“”We hang our degrees like windchimes that never catch a breeze. We iron clothes that we have nowhere to go in. We learn how to name our hunger softly. We write cover letters like liturgies, signing them off with borrowed faith.””I try to explain it to my little brother—why I’m still here, why the fridge hums louder than we do, why the house feels smaller now. He draws me with a cape and calls me a superhero. I hang it next to the degree, both of us pretending. Two relics of a faith I can’t abandon.”

Unburdened | Moseka Ole Ntiyia

“Somewhere, choices still linger, / unopened doors and paths untread, / but I no longer ache to follow each one, / for there is freedom in the unknown, / and solace in surrendering to the present, / where my heart beats calmly, untangled. “