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Winged Witnesses
The voices in Chisom Okafor’s poems have witnessed the microhistories of the atypical body, the unusual body, the enjambed body, the chronically ill body trying to navigate space and time, love and displacement.
84 pages, Paperback
Published December 1, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 24, 2025
Thank you to the University of Nebraska Press for gifting me this poignant collection about disability and chronic illness by an incredible, Nigerian poet.
January 24, 2026
This poetry collection draws heavily from the poet’s lived experiences with a genetic heart condition, a complicated relationship with their father, and various forms of intimacy and connection. Throughout the collection, the poet repeatedly returns to ideas of inheritance, fragility, and the constant awareness of mortality, which gives the collection a clear emotional center.
For me, the strongest poems were those that dealt most directly with chronic illness, genetic predisposition, and the looming presence of death. These pieces felt vulnerable and urgent, and they captured the tension between bodily limitation and the desire for understanding or control in a way that really resonated with me as someone who has dealt with prolonged illness. I found these poems to be where the collection felt most impactful for me.
Other thematic threads didn’t land as strongly. The poems engaging with religion, in particular, felt somewhat disconnected from the rest of the collection, both in how they were placed and how deeply they were explored. Rather than adding to the collections thematic explorations, they occasionally interrupted the flow and left me unsure of what the poet wanted the reader to take away from them. The poems about family were interesting, but they felt more like brief glimpses of a father-son dynamic which limited their impact. The poems centered on romantic and interpersonal relationships were the most uneven for me. While a few effectively captured intimacy and tension, others leaned so heavily on metaphor that they felt distant or overly obscure, making it harder to connect with what seemed intended to be deeply emotional moments.
Overall, the collection worked best when it directly confronted illness, inheritance, and mortality. While some of the other thematic elements felt less cohesive, I still appreciated the poet’s voice and style which both were strongly felt in this collection. Even though it had some bumps in the road, I still enjoyed my time with this collection and found some poems that really emotionally impacted me. I will definitely keep an eye of for Chisom Okafor's work in the future.
Thank you to the publisher, University of Nebraska Press, for an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions shared in this review are my own!
For me, the strongest poems were those that dealt most directly with chronic illness, genetic predisposition, and the looming presence of death. These pieces felt vulnerable and urgent, and they captured the tension between bodily limitation and the desire for understanding or control in a way that really resonated with me as someone who has dealt with prolonged illness. I found these poems to be where the collection felt most impactful for me.
Other thematic threads didn’t land as strongly. The poems engaging with religion, in particular, felt somewhat disconnected from the rest of the collection, both in how they were placed and how deeply they were explored. Rather than adding to the collections thematic explorations, they occasionally interrupted the flow and left me unsure of what the poet wanted the reader to take away from them. The poems about family were interesting, but they felt more like brief glimpses of a father-son dynamic which limited their impact. The poems centered on romantic and interpersonal relationships were the most uneven for me. While a few effectively captured intimacy and tension, others leaned so heavily on metaphor that they felt distant or overly obscure, making it harder to connect with what seemed intended to be deeply emotional moments.
Overall, the collection worked best when it directly confronted illness, inheritance, and mortality. While some of the other thematic elements felt less cohesive, I still appreciated the poet’s voice and style which both were strongly felt in this collection. Even though it had some bumps in the road, I still enjoyed my time with this collection and found some poems that really emotionally impacted me. I will definitely keep an eye of for Chisom Okafor's work in the future.
Thank you to the publisher, University of Nebraska Press, for an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions shared in this review are my own!
January 10, 2026
"[...]Distortion is an artifical translation given
to the body's catabolic responses,
the muscles of the heart constantly undergoing
a biology of breakdown
and yours being a winged witness to this phenomenon.
How long before you begin your long walk home?
The doctor's assistant asks
if you've ever fallen into something heavier than darkness.
Like a coma.
For you, it's this room of cardiac machines. These plugs.
This beeping tragedy.[...]"
- from the poem "On Your Second Visit to the Cardiologist"
Chisom Okafor's poetry collection Winged Witnesses dives into the complex experiences and feelings around disability and chronic illness while also grappling with questions around desire and complicated familial relationships (and the intersections of all these themes).
Okafor, who lives with a hypertensive heart disease and also works in the health sector, uses a medical register I haven't seen often in poetry. He writes with precision about aspects such as symptoms and medical tests which give a lot of these poems a very concrete center. But at the same time, by weaving in water imagery (and also birds), myths and religious allusion, and more elusive storytelling, the poems oscillate between the immediately tangible and more slippery meanings.
There is also a tender queerness which laces this collection (and not just by quoting Carl Phillips more than once). Throughout the collection the poems address a "lover" who is always referred to with "they" and, of course, there is beginning of "Birdhouse" ("I do not keep diaries to save myself anymore/ or the people I love,/ or love itself"). Interestingly, an earlier version said "the men I love", and the "they" of some poems was a "he", but I also think that this more open approach works beautifully. The collection ends on the quiet poem "In Telephone Conversation with My Father Where He Enquires about My Marriage Plans". Nothing is resolved. But Okafor's gentle touch lingers after closing the book.
I received a review copy from the University of Nebraska Press.
to the body's catabolic responses,
the muscles of the heart constantly undergoing
a biology of breakdown
and yours being a winged witness to this phenomenon.
How long before you begin your long walk home?
The doctor's assistant asks
if you've ever fallen into something heavier than darkness.
Like a coma.
For you, it's this room of cardiac machines. These plugs.
This beeping tragedy.[...]"
- from the poem "On Your Second Visit to the Cardiologist"
Chisom Okafor's poetry collection Winged Witnesses dives into the complex experiences and feelings around disability and chronic illness while also grappling with questions around desire and complicated familial relationships (and the intersections of all these themes).
Okafor, who lives with a hypertensive heart disease and also works in the health sector, uses a medical register I haven't seen often in poetry. He writes with precision about aspects such as symptoms and medical tests which give a lot of these poems a very concrete center. But at the same time, by weaving in water imagery (and also birds), myths and religious allusion, and more elusive storytelling, the poems oscillate between the immediately tangible and more slippery meanings.
There is also a tender queerness which laces this collection (and not just by quoting Carl Phillips more than once). Throughout the collection the poems address a "lover" who is always referred to with "they" and, of course, there is beginning of "Birdhouse" ("I do not keep diaries to save myself anymore/ or the people I love,/ or love itself"). Interestingly, an earlier version said "the men I love", and the "they" of some poems was a "he", but I also think that this more open approach works beautifully. The collection ends on the quiet poem "In Telephone Conversation with My Father Where He Enquires about My Marriage Plans". Nothing is resolved. But Okafor's gentle touch lingers after closing the book.
I received a review copy from the University of Nebraska Press.
November 29, 2025
I got a free review ARC, but this review is entirely my own opinion.
Winged Witnesses was a poetry collection that touched on several things; from a seemingly genetic heart disease, to family dynamics- specifically son and father-, religion, romantic love, and coming to terms with death. The poetry was beautiful, imagery of songs and water and the past tying all of the poems together creating a clear image even through all of the flowery analogies and such that poetry usually includes. I do recommend this, the reason why my rating is lower then what it seemingly should be is for simply personal reasons.
As I've mentioned in a few other reviews, I'm fairly new in poetry spaces and have started dipping my toes in more and more to understand what works for me and what doesn't, and I think this is one of those times in which the form didn't really work for me. Along with the heavy religious themes that draw from both African and biblical myth. I don't mind the former, as I know little about that and found it interesting to parse more in the times it was referenced, but at times I found it got a bit too Godly for me- for lack of a better term.
I would not turn anyone away if this interests them, I still say give it a go if it interests you, this just wasn't particularly for me.
Winged Witnesses was a poetry collection that touched on several things; from a seemingly genetic heart disease, to family dynamics- specifically son and father-, religion, romantic love, and coming to terms with death. The poetry was beautiful, imagery of songs and water and the past tying all of the poems together creating a clear image even through all of the flowery analogies and such that poetry usually includes. I do recommend this, the reason why my rating is lower then what it seemingly should be is for simply personal reasons.
As I've mentioned in a few other reviews, I'm fairly new in poetry spaces and have started dipping my toes in more and more to understand what works for me and what doesn't, and I think this is one of those times in which the form didn't really work for me. Along with the heavy religious themes that draw from both African and biblical myth. I don't mind the former, as I know little about that and found it interesting to parse more in the times it was referenced, but at times I found it got a bit too Godly for me- for lack of a better term.
I would not turn anyone away if this interests them, I still say give it a go if it interests you, this just wasn't particularly for me.
December 13, 2025
Thank you Netgalley and Chisom Okafor for sending me this advance review copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
This was a wonderful book of poetry!
The writing style was beautifully lyrical, and once you start reading it draws you in and refuses to let go. As someone living with chronic illnesses myself, these poems hit deep in my soul. You can really feel the exhaustion and pain of living with this day in and day out. There was also an interesting, almost spiritual reverence at times as well. This is a fantastic book, and a great glimpse into the mind of someone that lives with chronic illness.
This was a wonderful book of poetry!
The writing style was beautifully lyrical, and once you start reading it draws you in and refuses to let go. As someone living with chronic illnesses myself, these poems hit deep in my soul. You can really feel the exhaustion and pain of living with this day in and day out. There was also an interesting, almost spiritual reverence at times as well. This is a fantastic book, and a great glimpse into the mind of someone that lives with chronic illness.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews