I am pleased to announce the publication of an essay that I wrote in 2004–sixteen years later.
The journal is the INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF AFRICAN AMERICAN ART.
The essay, on the work of Bing Davis, is titled “Flying Back Home.” I describe Mr. Davis as an “Afronaut.”
I did not use the term “Afrofuturism,” because that term was not even in theoretical usage at that time.
FEBRUARY 16, 2020
Africans living in voluntary and compelled exile:
Do we deserve the “comfort” of exile, if we are only concerned about the comfort of our immediate families?
We all realize that a country like Nigeria has become a lion’s den, and many of the citizens feel trapped inside it.
We realize that many of us escaped with nothing in our pockets. I left with only $98 in my pocket in 1992.
Independence Day
Mother, why birth me black
in a white caul
with a white umbilical chord
feeding me off a tube
connected to your navel
from my prosimian body?
The Proposal
(To the colonial master)
Oga, will you marry me,
and take me home?
I can be your second
even third or fourth wife
You look so handsome
and I giggle
Dear Kicking Fetus
For Saidiya Hartman***
Why kick your mother
so hard, so relentless
right in the center
of her tender navel?
Is there something
you know about life,
about the impious ways
My Dear Child
Before you were born—
if you raised your binoculars,
if you could peep
through the keyhole of life
Would you open the door
and walk right through?
Or would you run back
To My Unborn Child Learn to listen Between the lines. Words are nothing but mesmerizing sounds The word “water”Is not wet.
HOW TO LOOK IN A MIRROR When you find a mirror you must first turn on the lightNot the light in the room But the light in your heart. Never look in the mirror With your eyes:
I’m a refugee
An exile, a stranger
In a gold residence.
Home died decades away.
Those who opened their door
To welcome my wandering legs
Point to me their tables
decked with wine and sweetbread.
Àwọn Yèyélórìṣà, Akirè Shrine Ilé Ifẹ̀, 2003.
After I took this picture in 2003, I returned to find the group in 2017.
But for the two women at the extreme left, all the others had transitioned.
Everything had disappeared.
There was nothing left. Absolutely nothing. Zit.
But the Irunmoles have a way of ensuring that we don’t lose everything, even though we might be careless as humans.
etween the past and the future,
The present is squeezed to death.
Stop allowing the junk from the past,
or the apprehension about the future,
to steal the pleasure of your now.