Chisom Okafor
"All I Know About a Heavy Heart Is How to Carry It is a celebrated revival of the
absorbing language of an observant writer who raises and struggles with
the right questions that the heart requires answering. Chisom Okafor, from
Nigeria, does not spoon-feed simplicity but poetically restores chaos and
complexity as a universal way of seeing and writing that demands so much
more but offers even more in return. This collection of poetry interrogates
what it means to be human and vulnerable through raw fierce and unflinching
energy that sweeps the reader through unexpected passages and dislocations."Jaki Shelton Green
from Animalcules
What first greets anyone who enters this room
is not the medication, not my drooping eyes,
not my worn face like Schrödinger’s cat,
tarrying undecided between recovery and relapse,
but the old bible left on the stool, just beside my bed
where my father’s hand can swiftly reach it.
At midnight, he flips it open and
for a long while, stares at the vignette of the Last Supper
on the first page, as if to crawl into it
and save Jesus from imminent death.
Then I hear him recite from his favorite bible verse
into his palms, supple with anointing oil
his mouth dense with the book of Isaiah:
Ma ndi n’ele anya Onyenweanyi . . . ga-agbanwe ike ha
Ha ga-agba ósó, ike agaghi agwukwa ha
Ha ga-eje ije, ghara ida mba.
Forthcoming. Do NOT order yet.
$14 ISBN 978-0-9845740-8-7