{"id":24776,"date":"2023-01-10T07:27:17","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T06:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/?p=24776"},"modified":"2023-01-10T07:27:17","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T06:27:17","slug":"poetry-habiba-dokubo-asari-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/poetry-iheoma-uzomba","title":{"rendered":"Poetry &#8211; Iheoma Uzomba"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Conversations with the Sea<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How do you dress the wounds of history, or stitch the scars<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of a race whose ancestry you have swallowed with your tides?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How do you perform this litmus test over again, where the redness of a people\u2019s<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ancestral blood flows in your veins while your surface is an endless blue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How do you rinse death\u2019s salty taste off the walls of your tongue? Is there<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a country buried in your waves for the ones who never got to see theirs anymore?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The bodies scattered at your banks, are they cashiers or fishes in their pools<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of blood? Do the boats ever grow sea-sick from running over the dead bodies<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in your grasp? Why do your waves rise and fall like wings? Would it be\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the voices of dead black souls fighting to not drown beneath water?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I come to you, knowledge-thirsty. Believe me, I have tried to bleach these burdens<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">just to lighten them but I guess no messiah\u2019s blood can wash black skin white as snow.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If what we call a sea-storm are my ancestors making peace with history<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in your belly, then I come to you, with mouthfuls of prayer,<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that I may sleep and wake in your arms, a salty offering tracing her way<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to the undug grave of her forebears because this too is home for the unhoused.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>*Poetry Translation Centre &amp; Book Buzz Foundation Project<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Conversations with the Sea How do you dress the wounds of history, or stitch the scars of a race whose ancestry you have swallowed with your tides? &nbsp; How do&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-style\" href=\"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/poetry-iheoma-uzomba\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8938,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetryake-review-2022"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Poetry - Iheoma Uzomba - Ake Arts &amp; Book Festival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/poetry-iheoma-uzomba\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Poetry - Iheoma Uzomba - Ake Arts &amp; 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