WHEN THE FLOWERS ARRIVE TOO LATE
No flowers came
till she caught him cheating
that May, her apartment
unfurled with wreaths of pleas
yet, the soothing scent of petals couldn’t
stir the dead butterflies in her gut
often, we attempt to nectar
morgued hearts with heliotropic apologies
hence, dead things hoard flowers
like dust on a forsaken edifice
Abu Ibrahim (IB), a Nigerian poet and spoken word artist residing in the United Kingdom, has gained recognition for his work across various literary platforms. His poetry has appeared in publications such as The Belfast Review, The Barren Magazine, Causeway Magazine (Aberdeen University Press), Brittle Paper, Paddlers Press, African Writer Magazine, and Ink Sweat & Tears, among others. IB has also graced stages at notable events, including the Pa Gya Literary Festival in Ghana, the Lagos International Poetry Festival, the Lagos Book and Art Festival, and the Quramo Festival of Words. He is the 2024 Augur Annual Micro-Fiction Contest winner, the Ink Sweat & Tears Pick of the Month for July 2024, the 2024 Poetry Journal Prize winner, a 2023 recipient of the Lagos State University Debate Society Impact Maker Award for storytelling, and the 2023 winner of the Port Harcourt Poetry Festival’s Poetry/Spoken Word Album of the Year for his debut album, Music Has Failed Us which is available on all major streaming platforms.
IB – the letters are sounded out separately – will be with us from March through June 2025 . To find out how to submit poetry prose, word & image, filmpoems and reviews to him please check out our submissions page here.
IS&T internships run for 4 months each consecutively, and in order to go some way towards redressing the balance in publishing, will for the foreseeable future come from the Black, Asian, Latinx and others from the global majority (ethnic minority in the UK). More details are below.