Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa

I really like Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa's poem "Red Sky" in Diagram here, issue 10.5. It's a very modern type of poem, with layers of meta, but it's a good one. It has a great sense of unease that doesn't tip the line.

Here's some excerpts, it's a short poem:

Some things that are red in nature have no red         
in their names, like blood, cherry, [...]

But see these many words: admired, adventured,
shred, mirrored, hired, watered, even the title.[...]

They are carrying red all about on their lips
like the red beaks [...]


or on the wet sand
and mud, moving things around. 


Another great poem by him is "Kola Rainbow" here in The Salt River Review, issue of spring 2009. It has a great sense of movement through time that's not the typical cliche; it's great, I'll excerpt some of the middle here:

River frogs reel forest hip-hops
gently over the clear silence.
Under the mango, leaves weave a dance. [...]

Two women trek along Aja road,
with calabash on their heads.
They are talking among themselves,

half-laughing, half-listening,
talking all the time down the road.