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Sacrament of Bodies
In this groundbreaking collection of poems, Sacrament of Bodies, Romeo Oriogun fearlessly interrogates how a queer man in Nigeria can heal in a society where everything is designed to prevent such restoration. With honesty, precision, tenderness of detail, and a light touch, Oriogun explores grief and how the body finds survival through migration.
"It is inevitable that Sacrament of Bodies will become an influential work in contemporary poetry from Africa, especially with its centering of queer people. In Oriogun’s journey, it feels like a book he needed to write. Where a weaker hand might falter under the sensitivity of such a subject, his is assured—skills he has been traversing beautifully into prose nonfiction."—Emmanuel Esomnofu, Open Country
"It is inevitable that Sacrament of Bodies will become an influential work in contemporary poetry from Africa, especially with its centering of queer people. In Oriogun’s journey, it feels like a book he needed to write. Where a weaker hand might falter under the sensitivity of such a subject, his is assured—skills he has been traversing beautifully into prose nonfiction."—Emmanuel Esomnofu, Open Country
78 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2020
8 people are currently reading
314 people want to read
About the author
Romeo Oriogun
5 books15 followersRomeo Oriogun is a Nigerian poet whose poems have appeared on Prairie Schooner, Connotation Press, Brittle Paper, and others. He is the winner of the 2017 Brunel International African Prize for Poetry, his manuscript My Body Is No Miracle was shortlisted for the 2018 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. He is currently an Artist Protection Fund Fellow, a Scholars-at-Risk Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African American and African Studies and also a Visiting Poet in the English Department at Harvard University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
July 9, 2024
This is Romeo´s second book of poems that I read, having been taken by one of his previous book, Burnt men. And here, he does it again, astonishes me with the beauty of his writing and his poetry, sometimes with beautiful images of loving in the making, other times with images of love torn by the rage and hatred of others.
Here are poems of love between men, a love that cannot be in his birth country, Nigeria. Here are poems of the horrors faced by queer people, where a certain way of dancing may out a gay boy, where the fear for one's own life feels like a burden when a friend is in deep trouble, where mobs looking forward to lynching and killing and burning these men in love permeates many of these poems:
Because the night is silent,
the trees will search for a voice,
the wind will fill a body with sorrowful songs.
Forgive me, I drank old wine
as a mob marked your body.
There is nowhere to say enough,
nowhere to breathe in the open sea
without salt stinging your throat;
nowhere to wash our body in water and become free.
There was mockery on the spot
where your hand touched the blood on your shirt.
The voice said, you are fallen ashes, a mirror
of something unnatural, the dark side of God.
This was the point my mouth should have poured water
over your burning skin.
Forgive me, there was a pipe lying so close to another man;
there was a fire burning nearby and I ran into a dark street,
where I called your name in silence and said live,
knowing people like us will always be hunted.
I remember the night you licked the salt
in my palm and said do not be afraid to live in your skin.
Maybe you knew, you knew one day your scream
will stretch my throat and my silence will break
out of a darkness hard as a wall. (Elegy for a burnt friend)
I read these poems and I want to cry, and I think of the many other countries in Africa where love between same-sex people feels like death penalty, and throughout many countries in Asia and some in Europe and all along the Americas, where lesbian girls and women are raped to learn to like sex with men, where a show of affection between father and son may be interpreted like love between a gay couple and end up in tragedy, as it has already happened in my home country, Brazil, just to give one among thousands of examples. No faith, no political preference, no personal beliefs shall be above any human life, but we, humans, oh, poor species. I sometimes despise the fact that we are able to think rationally, for many always look for the worst in themselves.
Romeo lives in the USA nowadays and thankfully is a voice in need to shed light on these wounded lives of men and women forbidden to live their essence.
(...)
I was born to be darkness hiding under a cave,
I know the weight of exile in a body.
The maestro said all art is full of departure.
I was born to hold a boy on a bus station,
shake him loose, a house leaking memories
and tell him go, run, live
until we meet again.
Tired of running, of drinking whiskey
in the afternoon to forget
the darkness you pushed me into.
I open my body into pain and bring out your words
faggot, sin, bones waiting for the tongue of fire.
I let them slice me, burn me. I was born into a war.
My God’s duty is to hide the honey dripping from my mouth.
(...) (Departure)
Here are poems of love between men, a love that cannot be in his birth country, Nigeria. Here are poems of the horrors faced by queer people, where a certain way of dancing may out a gay boy, where the fear for one's own life feels like a burden when a friend is in deep trouble, where mobs looking forward to lynching and killing and burning these men in love permeates many of these poems:
Because the night is silent,
the trees will search for a voice,
the wind will fill a body with sorrowful songs.
Forgive me, I drank old wine
as a mob marked your body.
There is nowhere to say enough,
nowhere to breathe in the open sea
without salt stinging your throat;
nowhere to wash our body in water and become free.
There was mockery on the spot
where your hand touched the blood on your shirt.
The voice said, you are fallen ashes, a mirror
of something unnatural, the dark side of God.
This was the point my mouth should have poured water
over your burning skin.
Forgive me, there was a pipe lying so close to another man;
there was a fire burning nearby and I ran into a dark street,
where I called your name in silence and said live,
knowing people like us will always be hunted.
I remember the night you licked the salt
in my palm and said do not be afraid to live in your skin.
Maybe you knew, you knew one day your scream
will stretch my throat and my silence will break
out of a darkness hard as a wall. (Elegy for a burnt friend)
I read these poems and I want to cry, and I think of the many other countries in Africa where love between same-sex people feels like death penalty, and throughout many countries in Asia and some in Europe and all along the Americas, where lesbian girls and women are raped to learn to like sex with men, where a show of affection between father and son may be interpreted like love between a gay couple and end up in tragedy, as it has already happened in my home country, Brazil, just to give one among thousands of examples. No faith, no political preference, no personal beliefs shall be above any human life, but we, humans, oh, poor species. I sometimes despise the fact that we are able to think rationally, for many always look for the worst in themselves.
Romeo lives in the USA nowadays and thankfully is a voice in need to shed light on these wounded lives of men and women forbidden to live their essence.
(...)
I was born to be darkness hiding under a cave,
I know the weight of exile in a body.
The maestro said all art is full of departure.
I was born to hold a boy on a bus station,
shake him loose, a house leaking memories
and tell him go, run, live
until we meet again.
Tired of running, of drinking whiskey
in the afternoon to forget
the darkness you pushed me into.
I open my body into pain and bring out your words
faggot, sin, bones waiting for the tongue of fire.
I let them slice me, burn me. I was born into a war.
My God’s duty is to hide the honey dripping from my mouth.
(...) (Departure)
December 3, 2019
I was born to be darkness hiding under a cave,
I know the weight of exile in a body.
Romeo Oriogun's collection of poetry deals with the heartbreaking realities of being young and queer in Nigeria, forever walking the thin line on the margin of a culture that prescribes heteronormative manliness and sexuality at all costs. The language and imagery of the poems illustrate the particular violence of living in the shadows. Oriogun often translates the emotional through the body:
as in yearning: I want to find home in the rooms of your veins.
or in violence: In your room, your father smashes our bones against the wall,
our blood mingles, sings Kumbaya as it streaks into the rug.
Tell me this is not love,
tell me this is not how couples run into sunsets.
The poems are accessible, some even dipping into 'dear diary' type youthful reflections. However, as many of the poems are dealing with the youthful perspective of first love, heartbreak, coming out, father-son relationships, etc, the younger, naive tone doesn't necessarily detract from the emotional heart of the poems and, in some cases, may even enhance it.
While some of the poems definitely stand stronger than the others, I will say that all in all this is a very emotional collection from a writer I look forward to seeing more from in the future.
Thank you to Netgalley and University of Nebraska Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review
July 9, 2024
There's a debate going on in my country:
Is fourteen years behind bars okay for a gay man
or should death be a better option?
These are powerful words about being gay in Nigeria. This is very readable poetry, but I still read each one at least twice - first for impact, second to underline or just ponder.
Most have a tone of not feeling safe.
I didn't see his hand moving toward me
All I know was him calling my name
as if his desire was an ugly beast,
as if my face was the enemy.
They can be explicit:
He collapsed into my hands,
a baby seeing light for the first time
and all I did was caress his hair, closed my eyes
and swallowed his semen
And all three quoted sections above are in the same single-page poem: "Cathedral of a Broken Body".
I like the youthful energy of the author who is willing to explore this dangerous world.
Listen to this from "I Do Not Want My Body to Fly":
Remember the first time we met in the town of red earth,
I watched you wear your sweatshirt, all I wanted to do was watch you forever.
...
The truth is always a house with many windows; I wanted you to hold my wings, pluck out every fear and leave me whole because I do not want my body to fly from your eyes, I want the risk of burning; I want to know you before dawn."
Incredible!!
There is much to underline here. But there are also whole poems that tell a small story that must be engulfed in their entirety. They have a beginning/development/end like a short-story.
You can hear how hard being gay in Nigeria can be just in the poem titles:
- Cathedral of a Broken Body
- Departure
- Saddest Night Alive
- Elegy for a Burnt Friend
- Coming Out
- How to Survive the Fire
- Denial
- The Guilt of Exile
and this list above only gets me to page 18!
Easy 5*
Is fourteen years behind bars okay for a gay man
or should death be a better option?
These are powerful words about being gay in Nigeria. This is very readable poetry, but I still read each one at least twice - first for impact, second to underline or just ponder.
Most have a tone of not feeling safe.
I didn't see his hand moving toward me
All I know was him calling my name
as if his desire was an ugly beast,
as if my face was the enemy.
They can be explicit:
He collapsed into my hands,
a baby seeing light for the first time
and all I did was caress his hair, closed my eyes
and swallowed his semen
And all three quoted sections above are in the same single-page poem: "Cathedral of a Broken Body".
I like the youthful energy of the author who is willing to explore this dangerous world.
Listen to this from "I Do Not Want My Body to Fly":
Remember the first time we met in the town of red earth,
I watched you wear your sweatshirt, all I wanted to do was watch you forever.
...
The truth is always a house with many windows; I wanted you to hold my wings, pluck out every fear and leave me whole because I do not want my body to fly from your eyes, I want the risk of burning; I want to know you before dawn."
Incredible!!
There is much to underline here. But there are also whole poems that tell a small story that must be engulfed in their entirety. They have a beginning/development/end like a short-story.
You can hear how hard being gay in Nigeria can be just in the poem titles:
- Cathedral of a Broken Body
- Departure
- Saddest Night Alive
- Elegy for a Burnt Friend
- Coming Out
- How to Survive the Fire
- Denial
- The Guilt of Exile
and this list above only gets me to page 18!
Easy 5*
September 11, 2022
This is one of the most incredible books of poetry I’ve ever read.
December 7, 2019
While I have very little in common with the author as a young, gay, Nigerian man, I appreciate the raw honesty and artistic beauty in this poetry collection. Oriogun walks the line between poetic and understandable well. His poems aren't so cryptic that you can't tell what he's talking about, but he also uses his words artistically.
From Elegua:
Elegua, guide my coming out,
give me the power of walking between shadows and light.
Yemoja, send waves to wash away the blood waiting in dark corners.
Every time I look up to the stage,
I feel someone raising a gun,
I must keep walking in the dark.
I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.
From Elegua:
Elegua, guide my coming out,
give me the power of walking between shadows and light.
Yemoja, send waves to wash away the blood waiting in dark corners.
Every time I look up to the stage,
I feel someone raising a gun,
I must keep walking in the dark.
I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.
March 22, 2020
Beautiful, heartbreaking poems shimmering with memory and tears. I am neither bisexual nor Nigerian, but like the best of writing, Oriogun's help me feel something of what it is like to have such natural desire in a culture and family that sees it as wholly unnatural and evil.
February 20, 2025
Absolutely beautiful collection about bisexuality, Nigerian identity, and trauma.
Favorite/standout poems: "The Ritual of Giving A Body Its Name", "Cathedral of a Broken Body", "Departure", "Kumbaya", "Saddest Night Alive", "Coming Out", "At Udi", "Denial", "The Guilt of Exile", "To The Man Who Mocked My Scared Body", "Boy", "Pink Club", "Before You Leave", "A Viral Picture", "Satan Be Gone", "Elegua", "The Queer Boy Remembers Colonization", "Sacrament of Bodies", "I Do Not Want My Body To Fly", "My Body Is No Miracle", and many others, but especially "What We Do Not Want", "What The World Won't Show Us" and "After a Blackout".
Really good collection that made me feel things.
Favorite/standout poems: "The Ritual of Giving A Body Its Name", "Cathedral of a Broken Body", "Departure", "Kumbaya", "Saddest Night Alive", "Coming Out", "At Udi", "Denial", "The Guilt of Exile", "To The Man Who Mocked My Scared Body", "Boy", "Pink Club", "Before You Leave", "A Viral Picture", "Satan Be Gone", "Elegua", "The Queer Boy Remembers Colonization", "Sacrament of Bodies", "I Do Not Want My Body To Fly", "My Body Is No Miracle", and many others, but especially "What We Do Not Want", "What The World Won't Show Us" and "After a Blackout".
Really good collection that made me feel things.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 3, 2020
Currently crying, review to follow.
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book wrecked me, and I mean that in a good way. It's a heartbreakingly honest collection dealing with the realities of being queer in Nigeria. Reading it felt important somehow. This collection was beautiful and I had to read it in short doses because it just made me so emotional.
I'd highly recommend picking this up, but be sure you're in the right headspace to do so.
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book wrecked me, and I mean that in a good way. It's a heartbreakingly honest collection dealing with the realities of being queer in Nigeria. Reading it felt important somehow. This collection was beautiful and I had to read it in short doses because it just made me so emotional.
I'd highly recommend picking this up, but be sure you're in the right headspace to do so.
March 3, 2020
ARC courtesy of NetGalley
Sacrament of Bodies is Romeo Oriogun's painful, delicate and gorgeous manifesto of what it means to be bisexual in a country where you are not accepted. Each poem builds on the last, touching on the intricate battle between self love and familial duty, societal expectations and sexual curiosity, the sand that loves the sea but can only hold its castoffs, the sea that loves the sand but can never hold its weight.
Sacrament of Bodies is Romeo Oriogun's painful, delicate and gorgeous manifesto of what it means to be bisexual in a country where you are not accepted. Each poem builds on the last, touching on the intricate battle between self love and familial duty, societal expectations and sexual curiosity, the sand that loves the sea but can only hold its castoffs, the sea that loves the sand but can never hold its weight.
November 20, 2019
I kindly received an ARC through netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I still don't know much about poetry, even after writing some lengthy essay. I requested this ARC more or less because I want to read more poetry, more queer poetry specifically, and because I didn't want my semester in African Literature to be in vain.
I know enough about poetry to say that it's good when you stay awake until 1:30am to finish the collection in one go. Poetry is good when you are grabbed and held in place by an emotion you can't put into words, because the that would mean reciting the poem back at itself again. Or when you set out to highlight your favourite passages and end up with neon yellow pages
I still don't know much about poetry, even after writing some lengthy essay. I requested this ARC more or less because I want to read more poetry, more queer poetry specifically, and because I didn't want my semester in African Literature to be in vain.
I know enough about poetry to say that it's good when you stay awake until 1:30am to finish the collection in one go. Poetry is good when you are grabbed and held in place by an emotion you can't put into words, because the that would mean reciting the poem back at itself again. Or when you set out to highlight your favourite passages and end up with neon yellow pages
April 16, 2020
This collection is really moving and beautiful. Poetry about queer resilience in the face of violence isn't new, but Oriogun brings a classical majesty to his poems that invites empathy and demonstrates masterful attention to religious iconography and mythmaking in the everyday world.
April 17, 2023
“And the vision came to Femi under the orange tree, at a place where the hunger was greater than the fear and he turned to his people and said ‘a boy shall see another boy and he shall call the boy good, for his body was created to be love and he shall walk into this body and realize that this language was already his and the shame shall fall way away because love is love and he shall bring him to his father’s house and they shall be one.’”
— from “The Lost Chapter of the Bible Written after God Stopped Receiving the Smoke of Burnt Flesh”
TITLE—Sacrament of Bodies
AUTHOR—Romeo Oriogun
PUBLISHED—2020
PUBLISHER—University of Nebraska Press
GENRE—poetry
SETTING—Nigeria
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—queer love, Nigeria, Light & Shadow, forbidden love, homophobia, fire & water & blood, sensuality & passion, Christian elements, oppressed & persecuted identities, “guilt of the exile”, bisexuality, Blackness, childhood & social trauma, Death & grief
WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
STORIES—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“Tell me this is not love,
tell me this is not how couples run into sunsets.
Tell me this is not the universe saying love is eternal
to two bodies traveling through the sea as salt.
…
I allow light to preserve me, I allow it to slash me into songs
traveling through the forest softly as dew.”
— from “Kumbaya”
My thoughts:
This gorgeous poetry collection is written in my favorite style of poetry (in terms of the form, language, voice, rhythm, diction, etc.—sorry I don’t know poetry well enough to be more specific about how this style is actually described etc. 😅) and the queer themes and beautiful, sensual descriptions of physical and spiritual love were so poignant and resonated so deeply with me. I also really liked the progression of the poems as I thought it evoked a kind of emotional, mental, and spiritual development in the narrative voice that subtly parallels a person’s development across their lifetime.
“And the vision came to Femi under the orange tree, at a place where the hunger was greater than the fear and he turned to his people and said “a boy shall see another boy and he shall call the boy good, for his body was created to be love and he shall walk into this body and realize that this language was already his and the shame shall fall way away because love is love and he shall bring him to his father’s house and they shall be one.”
— from “The Lost Chapter of the Bible Written after God Stopped Receiving the Smoke of Burnt Flesh”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
CW // homophobia, lynching (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)
Further Reading—
- THE DEATH OF VIVEK OJI, by Akwaeke Emezi
- CONTENT WARNING: EVERYTHING, by Akwaeke Emezi
- BLESS THE DAUGHTER RAISED BY A VOICE IN HER HEAD, by Warsan Shire
- TE KAIHAU: THE WINDEATER, by Keri Hulme
July 12, 2025
What sets this collection apart is its remarkable accessibility. Oriogun's writing is so simple yet powerful, that it allows the reader to effortlessly immerse themselves in the world of the poems.
As someone who was born, raised and still lives in Nigeria, the stories told within these pages are deeply relatable, tackling themes of self-discovery, desire, and the longstanding homophobia. Oriogun's voice is both tender and unflinching, offering a glimpse into the lives of those often marginalized or overlooked.
The poems are not only beautifully crafted but also moving. Oriogun's use of language is economical yet evocative, conveying emotions and ideas with remarkable precision. The result is a collection that feels both intimate and expansive, inviting the reader to reflect on their own experiences and connections.
As a queer person living in Nigeria, I'm grateful for poems like these, which remind us that we exist. Sacrament of Bodies shows the importance of representation and the need for stories that reflect queer and human experience.
As someone who was born, raised and still lives in Nigeria, the stories told within these pages are deeply relatable, tackling themes of self-discovery, desire, and the longstanding homophobia. Oriogun's voice is both tender and unflinching, offering a glimpse into the lives of those often marginalized or overlooked.
The poems are not only beautifully crafted but also moving. Oriogun's use of language is economical yet evocative, conveying emotions and ideas with remarkable precision. The result is a collection that feels both intimate and expansive, inviting the reader to reflect on their own experiences and connections.
As a queer person living in Nigeria, I'm grateful for poems like these, which remind us that we exist. Sacrament of Bodies shows the importance of representation and the need for stories that reflect queer and human experience.
August 29, 2025
Queer poetry is so heart-wrenching to read, especially in collections like this where the same pleas and hopes are echoes throughout every writers work, but it is always always worth the time to sit and reflect on the very real experiences of other people from your own community. Queer people globally are still discriminated against and though many of us are lucky enough to be able to live comfortably, pausing and acknowledging the horrors others face is vital for realising why pride in who we are is so important.
My favourite line from the book is "What doesn't share our grief is not us". Such a powerful line, especially in the context of queer murder. Those who cannot understand this tragedy are not us, not people. I could not recommend this book enough.
My favourite line from the book is "What doesn't share our grief is not us". Such a powerful line, especially in the context of queer murder. Those who cannot understand this tragedy are not us, not people. I could not recommend this book enough.
December 22, 2023
Sacrament of Bodies
This poetry collection is so tragically beautiful. Romeo Oriogun walks the reader through what it is like in the body of a queer, Black man living in a country where being queer can be a death sentence. He does it with so much grace that it stings. He presents the sorrow, the fear, the longing, the love and the loss so clearly that you can’t look away. And why would you want to. The beauty of his words is undeniable, while the substance of then can cut through stone.
The easiest 5 stars I have ever given.
This poetry collection is so tragically beautiful. Romeo Oriogun walks the reader through what it is like in the body of a queer, Black man living in a country where being queer can be a death sentence. He does it with so much grace that it stings. He presents the sorrow, the fear, the longing, the love and the loss so clearly that you can’t look away. And why would you want to. The beauty of his words is undeniable, while the substance of then can cut through stone.
The easiest 5 stars I have ever given.
July 25, 2025
It was really good.
My favourite poems were: Kumbaya, To the Man Who Mocked My Scared Body, The Birthday, My Tinder Date Speaks of Fruits and Prelude to Freedom.
Here are some quotes I loved:
“as you look back to stop your shadow from holding my hands.”
“They will write this as the saddest night alive but it won’t mean a thing to us, we’ve been hurting before the earth put to birth.”
“In the dark, my lover with a halo offered his skin to me and said eat.”
“Yesterday I visited my mother’s grave, the tree has been cut down”
My favourite poems were: Kumbaya, To the Man Who Mocked My Scared Body, The Birthday, My Tinder Date Speaks of Fruits and Prelude to Freedom.
Here are some quotes I loved:
“as you look back to stop your shadow from holding my hands.”
“They will write this as the saddest night alive but it won’t mean a thing to us, we’ve been hurting before the earth put to birth.”
“In the dark, my lover with a halo offered his skin to me and said eat.”
“Yesterday I visited my mother’s grave, the tree has been cut down”
February 2, 2024
Words cannot adequately describe how much this gutted me. The centrality of emotion ensures the kind of engagement that invites reflection and I imagine writing this must have been a very cathartic process for the author. Poems that touched me the most are: Kumbaya, At Udi, and Saddest Night Alive.
April 12, 2021
I am breathless. This was beautiful and heart-breaking and gut-wrenching and wonderful.
Particular favorites: Departure, To the Man Who Mocked My Scared Body, What We Do Not Want, Prelude to Freedom, and Sermon of Pain.
Particular favorites: Departure, To the Man Who Mocked My Scared Body, What We Do Not Want, Prelude to Freedom, and Sermon of Pain.
September 9, 2025
"I have learnt to love every broken thing
the way a man learns to live with a memory that doesn't die.
I have learnt to carry my father's body in my heart like a son
that inherits a knife cut without flinching."
the way a man learns to live with a memory that doesn't die.
I have learnt to carry my father's body in my heart like a son
that inherits a knife cut without flinching."
March 22, 2020
The poems in this collection are moving, dealing with how it is to be bisexual in a country that does not accept who you are.
March 25, 2021
Incredibly powerful and achingly beautiful. Oriogun’s poetry is some of the most moving I have ever read. I will be thinking about this collection for a long time.
April 3, 2021
Absolutely beautiful
June 19, 2021
Libro de poesías. Autor nigeriano. Tema homosexual. Interesante cómo introduce los temas de persecución y discriminación
November 20, 2021
there were some heavy-hitters in here. i was especially enamored by the stories and the images in the final handful of poems, i feel like that's where i really connected.
July 2, 2024
Sooooo well-written and beautiful and depressing and a very titch hopeful.
July 21, 2021
Wow wow wow. Take your time and read slowly. I took to reading these out loud, enunciating each word, letting each full stop hang in the air before moving on. The poems flow in a loose narrative that I found an effective container for the tenderness, despair, numbness, personal history, sweetness, and violence that moves through them. The violence is somehow both familiar and shocking. There is a difference for me between intellectually knowing the punishment that awaits queer Nigerians in particular (aside from queer Black people globally) and feeling through these words the sharp punch of the personal impact it leaves. These poems are visceral, atmospheric, and unpretentious in their beauty. I'm not a poet myself and am feeling it difficult to explain them justly. Simply: read them. Take care of yourself, but read them.
As a queer Black American from a very white, poor, rural area, I felt my experience reflected in his, if a duller, flatter version for its relative privilege and safety. The reviews on this page largely center the caveat, "I am not a queer Black man, but-" and here I will tell you that it does make a difference. If you are not of similar experience, and they don't click for you, give them some time and read them again.
As a queer Black American from a very white, poor, rural area, I felt my experience reflected in his, if a duller, flatter version for its relative privilege and safety. The reviews on this page largely center the caveat, "I am not a queer Black man, but-" and here I will tell you that it does make a difference. If you are not of similar experience, and they don't click for you, give them some time and read them again.
March 3, 2020
In her Nobel Prize lecture, Toni Morrison called on writers to show us “what it is to have no home in this place. To be set adrift from the one you knew. [Show us] what it is to live at the edge of towns that cannot bear your company.” In lucid prose poetry, Romeo Oriogun answers Morrison’s call. In the voice of the queer man living in Nigeria, he details an exiled existence, “I’m learning how to live with this fear of not finding love in this city…” Our narrator is a phantom haunting his fellow countrypeople, lurking and hiding in the shadows of a city that cannot love him back. Living in the nightmares of other people’s imaginations immobilizes him: “I do not know if I have permission to speak of the fear.” Oriogun’s language, to borrow Morrison’s words, never sweats. His clean writing leaves no gristle on the bone. It makes it easier for Oriogun to pose questions that strike at the heart of the commercialization of queer identities for corporate sponsored parades, “What is freedom if a million people still walk with the fear of being seen?” This is not the kind of poetry that makes you feel good. Oriogun’s words implicate, dealing a swift blow to city dwellers moving through streets with an ease our narrator cannot feel.
February 23, 2020
I received an ARC through netgalley. One of my goals is to read was to read a collection of poems and Sacrament of Bodies fit the bill of exploring more works by queer writers with the intersection of race and sexuality. It was an interesting read of understanding marginality in a culture that being queer remains to be taboo. The rawness and emotions are evident in each piece with a tying of themes thread throughout the collection. The stories are youthful, coming of age and coming out narrative and there is this sense of shared experience globally among queer men. The reach for acceptance from mother is powerful as he explores grief of being true to oneself but still craving the love of family. And the violence of fathers and religion is seen through his description of living in the shadows trying to find the light.
“I’m in a bus station
Saying bye to boys searching for cities
Where they can hold hands and walk on beaches.
I know what it means to live here
With words invented for hate, with wounds asked to be silent.
And when they leave, I want to whisper into ears
Filled with the fear of dying in the Sahara
Do not forget I still live here.
“I’m in a bus station
Saying bye to boys searching for cities
Where they can hold hands and walk on beaches.
I know what it means to live here
With words invented for hate, with wounds asked to be silent.
And when they leave, I want to whisper into ears
Filled with the fear of dying in the Sahara
Do not forget I still live here.
February 21, 2020
Sacrament of Bodies is the Nigerian poet Romeo Oriogun's debut poetry collection. Oriogun has previously published three chapbooks: Burnt Men (2016), The Origin of Butterflies (2018), and Museum of Silence (2019). In a thread on his Twitter account @SonOfOlokun the poet stated "This book is special to me, it is a book that roots my queerness to my mother and my grandma, it is a book that says to my mother, you didn't die in vain."
In Sacrament of Bodies Romeo Oriogun explores what it is like to be a queer man in Nigeria and to have to leave home to be safe and healthy amongst other things. The poems in this collection are vivid and even though they oftentimes describe painful experiences, a joy to read. A poem that I particularly enjoyed reading was On Forgetting. In that poem the poet says " Remembering is a pilgrimage." That resonated with me. Reading this collection felt like going on a pilgrimage with the poet. I would recommend that anyone who enjoys reading poetry read this book.
Disclosure:I received a copy of this book from netgalley and University of Nebraska Press. The views expressed are completely my own.
In Sacrament of Bodies Romeo Oriogun explores what it is like to be a queer man in Nigeria and to have to leave home to be safe and healthy amongst other things. The poems in this collection are vivid and even though they oftentimes describe painful experiences, a joy to read. A poem that I particularly enjoyed reading was On Forgetting. In that poem the poet says " Remembering is a pilgrimage." That resonated with me. Reading this collection felt like going on a pilgrimage with the poet. I would recommend that anyone who enjoys reading poetry read this book.
Disclosure:I received a copy of this book from netgalley and University of Nebraska Press. The views expressed are completely my own.
February 13, 2020
Such a wonderful poetry collection. I'm not normally one to gravitate towards poetry, but I wanted to only support black authors this month and going out of my comfort zone has been a goal of mine for the entire year, so I picked it up. And when I read that it discusses being gay in Nigeria, I was instantly interested as, being a member of the LGBTQIA+ community myself, I'm also extremely interested in seeing that representation and reading about different experiences, especially in places more unfamiliar to me. Overall, it was a huge learning experience and I'm really grateful and honored to have read something that felt so personal and meaningful.
The poetry itself was fantastic; not too inaccessible, but also not too fluffy and light. The perfect in between to get your mind really thinking while still understanding the content. I think my favorites were Boy, The Queer Boy Remembers Colonization, and Everything Must Die. Those will stay with me forever and I swear I have them bookmarked into infinity.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an open and honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
The poetry itself was fantastic; not too inaccessible, but also not too fluffy and light. The perfect in between to get your mind really thinking while still understanding the content. I think my favorites were Boy, The Queer Boy Remembers Colonization, and Everything Must Die. Those will stay with me forever and I swear I have them bookmarked into infinity.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an open and honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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