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Questions for Ada
The artistry of QUESTIONS FOR ADA defies words, embodying the pain, the passion, and the power of love rising from the depths of our souls. Ijeoma Umebinyuo’s poetry is a flower that will blossom in the spirit of every reader as she shares her heart with raw candor. From lyrical lushness to smoky sensuality to raw truths, this tome of transforming verse is the book every woman wants to write but can’t until the broken mirrors of their lives have healed. In this gifted author’s own words—“I am too full of life to be half-loved.” A bold celebration of womanhood.
Unknown Binding
First published August 7, 2015
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About the author
Ijeoma Umebinyuo
4 books387 followersIjeoma Umebinyuo is a Nigerian author. She was born in Lagos, Nigeria. She is the author of Questions for Ada, her first published collection of prose poems and poems. Her writings have been translated to Portuguese, Turkish, Spanish, Russian and French. In 2016, Ijeoma Umebinyuo was named one of the top ten contemporary poets from sub-sharan Africa by wrtivism.org.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 277 reviews
May 19, 2017
!!! REVIEW - https://africanbookaddict.com/2017/05...
Now THIS is how you write a poetry collection. 'Questions for Ada' is full of strength, vulnerability and pride. Every word in these poems is heavy with meaning and purpose. These poems show you that all your emotions are valid and must be felt. Some poetry collections feel lazy and words just seem to be thrown onto the pages. But 'Questions for Ada' is a collection that was carefully crafted with love and full awareness of self. I've dog-eared sooo many of the pages in this book because the poems just spoke to me. I found myself reflecting after reading a couple of poems at a time. I love when a piece of writing makes you reflect on your life/society and allows you to think about them critically.
I will definitely give this collection many more reads in the months and years to come.
'Questions for Ada' by Ijeoma Umebinyuo is beautiful work. I highly recommend everyone to savor these poems.
Now THIS is how you write a poetry collection. 'Questions for Ada' is full of strength, vulnerability and pride. Every word in these poems is heavy with meaning and purpose. These poems show you that all your emotions are valid and must be felt. Some poetry collections feel lazy and words just seem to be thrown onto the pages. But 'Questions for Ada' is a collection that was carefully crafted with love and full awareness of self. I've dog-eared sooo many of the pages in this book because the poems just spoke to me. I found myself reflecting after reading a couple of poems at a time. I love when a piece of writing makes you reflect on your life/society and allows you to think about them critically.
I will definitely give this collection many more reads in the months and years to come.
'Questions for Ada' by Ijeoma Umebinyuo is beautiful work. I highly recommend everyone to savor these poems.
August 14, 2015
This poetry collection is breathtakingly beautiful. Ijeoma Umebinyuo is writing for women, about the experience of being a woman. The poems are about self-worth and self loathing, about love, about trauma, about family. Some are about Nigeria; some are about being a student abroad. There are poems so short that you can hold a whole one under your tongue and smuggle it across international lines, and others that are longer and unfold a whole story.
Here's a very short one that I love:
Stay
let me tell you
how salt fell in love
one day,
salt found water
and just would not let go.
--Ocean
Here's a slightly longer one:
Your lover sped away
leaving tire marks on your skin.
You have resolved to eating
yesterday for breakfast.
I watch you gather your memories
like firewood,
warming yourself
for yet another lonely night.
There are also about mothers and daughters:
You are your mother's amen
to all her prayers
the calm to her trembling soul
she gathers your happiness
rubbing it on her skin
till she begins to glow
Another, "Glory"
Before the year ends
teach yourself five things
your mother never taught you
then, teach yourself five things
you want to teach your daughter
Let me leave you with one about homesickness, called "aching hearts//missing home"
At the embassy,
they never warned us about days
america will feel so lonely,
we will gather our mother tongue
hastily swallowing words
that remind us of home to keep warm
I'm going to treasure this book, and I look forward to many more poems and poetry collections by Ijeoma Umebinyuo.
Here's a very short one that I love:
Stay
let me tell you
how salt fell in love
one day,
salt found water
and just would not let go.
--Ocean
Here's a slightly longer one:
Your lover sped away
leaving tire marks on your skin.
You have resolved to eating
yesterday for breakfast.
I watch you gather your memories
like firewood,
warming yourself
for yet another lonely night.
There are also about mothers and daughters:
You are your mother's amen
to all her prayers
the calm to her trembling soul
she gathers your happiness
rubbing it on her skin
till she begins to glow
Another, "Glory"
Before the year ends
teach yourself five things
your mother never taught you
then, teach yourself five things
you want to teach your daughter
Let me leave you with one about homesickness, called "aching hearts//missing home"
At the embassy,
they never warned us about days
america will feel so lonely,
we will gather our mother tongue
hastily swallowing words
that remind us of home to keep warm
I'm going to treasure this book, and I look forward to many more poems and poetry collections by Ijeoma Umebinyuo.
March 2, 2024
One day
your bones will get weary
of men
who refuse to worship the God in you
On that day,
you will either slit your soul
or gather your spirit
leaving any man
who never called you
Holy
What a stellar collection of poerty that discusses womanhood, immigration, racism, and love. I am blown away by this collection, the words really do stick with you.
your bones will get weary
of men
who refuse to worship the God in you
On that day,
you will either slit your soul
or gather your spirit
leaving any man
who never called you
Holy
What a stellar collection of poerty that discusses womanhood, immigration, racism, and love. I am blown away by this collection, the words really do stick with you.
April 10, 2021
In one word - Powerful!
I have been reading this book little by little every night and falling asleep with a heavy heart. It's beautiful. But beautiful is such a lazy and lousy way to describe it!
Ijeoma Umebinyuo opens her unhealing heart through these short poems that speak volumes about the raw truths of being a woman. They are about cultural exploitation, alienation in a foreign country, anger, love, violence, abuse, emotions, tragedy, and courage. Each poem punches in the gut. They are full of pain and passion. They speak to the souls.
You call me
“sister”
not because you
are my blood
but because
you understand
the kind of tragedies
we both have endured
to come back into loving
ourselves
again
&
again.
Or,
Just like that,
you began to love
all the women in you
they shamed.
Just like that,
you slowly began to love
the little girl in you
they scarred.
Just like that,
you began to love the
girl who opened her legs
and made love to the first man
who did not sneak in at night
although the next morning
he called you a whore,
you began to love her.
You began to love
all the women
inside you
and you began to nurse her
back into life
without apologizing
for how she heals herself.
Some poems are about the strength, vulnerability, and pride of belonging in an ethnic group - Igbo or Yoruba. They are about Diaspora Blues - the deep primal pain and mindless despair of not belonging anywhere.
So,
here I am
too foreign for home
too foreign for here.
never enough for both.
I have been reading this book little by little every night and falling asleep with a heavy heart. It's beautiful. But beautiful is such a lazy and lousy way to describe it!
Ijeoma Umebinyuo opens her unhealing heart through these short poems that speak volumes about the raw truths of being a woman. They are about cultural exploitation, alienation in a foreign country, anger, love, violence, abuse, emotions, tragedy, and courage. Each poem punches in the gut. They are full of pain and passion. They speak to the souls.
You call me
“sister”
not because you
are my blood
but because
you understand
the kind of tragedies
we both have endured
to come back into loving
ourselves
again
&
again.
Or,
Just like that,
you began to love
all the women in you
they shamed.
Just like that,
you slowly began to love
the little girl in you
they scarred.
Just like that,
you began to love the
girl who opened her legs
and made love to the first man
who did not sneak in at night
although the next morning
he called you a whore,
you began to love her.
You began to love
all the women
inside you
and you began to nurse her
back into life
without apologizing
for how she heals herself.
Some poems are about the strength, vulnerability, and pride of belonging in an ethnic group - Igbo or Yoruba. They are about Diaspora Blues - the deep primal pain and mindless despair of not belonging anywhere.
So,
here I am
too foreign for home
too foreign for here.
never enough for both.
December 27, 2020
This was a very powerful, moving collection of poetry. If I had one criticism it would be that it does get very repetitive read all the way through. This wouldn’t be a problem if you were only dipping in and out over time, though.
Poem No. 5
Healing comes in waves
and maybe today
the wave hits the rocks
and that’s okay,
that’s okay, darling
you are still healing
you are still healing.
It is still winter
carry yourself gently
you are honey
you are flowers
you are enough.
Poem No. 5
Healing comes in waves
and maybe today
the wave hits the rocks
and that’s okay,
that’s okay, darling
you are still healing
you are still healing.
It is still winter
carry yourself gently
you are honey
you are flowers
you are enough.
January 1, 2017
So breathtaking I read it straight through twice. I'm sure I'll be rereading this when I'm heartbroken, when I need to be resilient, when I need to remind myself to be soft as well as tough, when I need to forgive myself.
August 26, 2017
Though the poetry collection, Questions for Ada, can display repetitive pattern of bruise, bondage and love with every page turn, Ijeoma Umebinyuo doesn't linger. Most of the poems here are short and brutal. Some poems can be read in time that takes to pull elbow back and deliver a punch; in both cases, the bruising and the aches arrive at the same time. Ijeoma Umebinyuo's themes vary between colonialism, cultural exploitation, alienation in foreign country, diaspora, mother, daughter, lover, father, sister, woman, girl, aunties, grandmothers, sex, violence, abuse, emotions, tragedy, power, self love, care, pride, independence, education, nature, and so forth. The style is often visceral and sometimes tongue in cheek, Ijeoma's writing is anger in poetic form.
Survival:
Nne:
The Clinic:
Bad Habits:
Alone:
Irony:
Invisible:
Survival:
I have always wondered
how women who carry war
inside their bones
still grow flowers
between their teeth.
Nne:
forcing manhood
on boys with skin
still made of
silk and mother's love
is cruel.
The Clinic:
Be kind to your body,
it has won so many wars.
Bad Habits:
I have left poems
on his skin
let her kiss him
and
read me to him.
Alone:
so many broken children
living in grown bodies
mimicking adult lives.
Irony:
they invite you to come view artifacts
stolen from your ancestors in their museums
as their "experts" explain your ancient Benin kingdom
Invisible:
You must let the pain visit.
You must allow it teach you.
You must not allow it overstay.
February 27, 2018
I found her most powerful quotes were when she did not hide behind imagery and comes out and says what she truly feels (like in Diaspora Blues, First Generation and Homeland, so beautiful). But the writing seemed to me like a watered down (slightly cliche) mashup of Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche and Warsan Shire. Some of the lines and organization seemed forced and and repetitive (she says thunder in veins a lot), which is a shame because she covers such important topics and it takes away from a lot of the feeling she's trying to portray. In the first half of the book I really wanted her to excavate more about the cultural ramifications and reasons for all she talks about. She gets into that in the second half of the book a little more, which I definitley appreciated. For the most part though, her writing is pretty raw which is what kept me reading until the end.
March 11, 2018
tw csa
“You lost cultures
You lost languages
You lost religions
You lost it all in the fire
that is colonisation
so, do not apologise
for owning every piece of you
they could not take, break
and claim as theirs.”
“Weight of sadness
You apologise for
how you carry your
mother’s loneliness
quietly
between your teeth.
You apologise for
how you carry your
father’s sins
inside your blood.
You forgot
how to carry yourself
away from the histories
that threatens to break you
open, leaving you with grief
and unbearable weight of emptiness.
Tell me, apart from the sadness
thick as smog
living inside your chest
tell me the last time
your held your face
and saw love
staring back at you.”
“When your body remembers,
how do you carry her back into love?”
Usually when I review poetry, I just post a few of my favourite poems , and leave them to speak for themselves. With ‘Questions for Ada’, however, I feel like the more I say, the less is said.
I had to read through this book slowly, as each poem touched my heart so deeply. This book, by a black woman who talks about colonialism, trauma and loving women. This book is perhaps one of the most important books in the world.
“You lost cultures
You lost languages
You lost religions
You lost it all in the fire
that is colonisation
so, do not apologise
for owning every piece of you
they could not take, break
and claim as theirs.”
“Weight of sadness
You apologise for
how you carry your
mother’s loneliness
quietly
between your teeth.
You apologise for
how you carry your
father’s sins
inside your blood.
You forgot
how to carry yourself
away from the histories
that threatens to break you
open, leaving you with grief
and unbearable weight of emptiness.
Tell me, apart from the sadness
thick as smog
living inside your chest
tell me the last time
your held your face
and saw love
staring back at you.”
“When your body remembers,
how do you carry her back into love?”
Usually when I review poetry, I just post a few of my favourite poems , and leave them to speak for themselves. With ‘Questions for Ada’, however, I feel like the more I say, the less is said.
I had to read through this book slowly, as each poem touched my heart so deeply. This book, by a black woman who talks about colonialism, trauma and loving women. This book is perhaps one of the most important books in the world.
January 22, 2018
I've become familiar with Ijeoma's work through her social media platforms and Tedx talk. Also this book was quite popular amongst my friends. So, how to rate this 🤔
If it was possible I would rate the first half of this book 2/5 stars and the rest 4/5 stars. So 3 stars.
The first half read in that very familiar Rupi Kaur way I still haven't gotten around to liking. Outside of a handful of pieces, most of it was underwhelming for me and I guess I'm just not the target group.
I will leave it at that.
But the rest of the book read more like Warsan Shire's work in Teaching my mother how to give birth (which I loved!). It was the human experience. It was culture, being an immigrant, family and more. I found that it does more justice to her writing -which is good- has a wider audience, and isn't the exhaustingly repetitive narrative I find insufferable with most of the popular contemporary poetry.
If it was possible I would rate the first half of this book 2/5 stars and the rest 4/5 stars. So 3 stars.
The first half read in that very familiar Rupi Kaur way I still haven't gotten around to liking. Outside of a handful of pieces, most of it was underwhelming for me and I guess I'm just not the target group.
I will leave it at that.
But the rest of the book read more like Warsan Shire's work in Teaching my mother how to give birth (which I loved!). It was the human experience. It was culture, being an immigrant, family and more. I found that it does more justice to her writing -which is good- has a wider audience, and isn't the exhaustingly repetitive narrative I find insufferable with most of the popular contemporary poetry.
February 24, 2021
What an excellent collection of thoughts and feelings 👌🏾👌🏾👌🏾
Here is but a few that I read countless times;
Do you return from love
As yourself or as another?
It seems there are still women
I have become
To understand the woman I was.
He said,
“You are beautiful”
I told him
“Beautiful “
Is a lazy and lousy way to describe me.
The hapiness when it comes,
When it stays,
My goodness it makes you look beautiful
Come closer.
Forgive your mother
for all the miracles she couldn’t perform.
Here is but a few that I read countless times;
Do you return from love
As yourself or as another?
It seems there are still women
I have become
To understand the woman I was.
He said,
“You are beautiful”
I told him
“Beautiful “
Is a lazy and lousy way to describe me.
The hapiness when it comes,
When it stays,
My goodness it makes you look beautiful
Come closer.
Forgive your mother
for all the miracles she couldn’t perform.
October 19, 2021
“Forgive me father
but sometimes my God
is a woman
crying in the shower
begging for another God
to lift her burden.”
A powerful, raw, and stunning poetry collection worthy of being read.
January 3, 2022
I have learnt my lesson. I will never again pick up a book just because i read a catchy excerpt from it on Tumblr.
July 14, 2022
*2.5
July 13, 2021
A full review will be updated soon.
December 9, 2016
What can I say, I am in love. With a pain, she says I should not let overstay.
This collection of poems is breathtakingly beautiful. How can someone write so beautifully about pain, healing, about diaspora blues, and of course, about mother?
I beat my heart
till it became unconscious
last night
This morning,
my mother
showed me our scars;
multiple wounds
on her body.
She made me cry, laugh, and chuckle, all at the same time. She is lovely. Reading her is like listening to a friend who cares.
This collection of poems is breathtakingly beautiful. How can someone write so beautifully about pain, healing, about diaspora blues, and of course, about mother?
I beat my heart
till it became unconscious
last night
This morning,
my mother
showed me our scars;
multiple wounds
on her body.
She made me cry, laugh, and chuckle, all at the same time. She is lovely. Reading her is like listening to a friend who cares.
June 9, 2018
Breathtakingly beautiful -- I love this collection of poems! Ijeoma Umebinyuo writes with so much feeling and strength and rawness and realness. The poems in "Questions for Ada" make you ache even as they make you hope, they take you to the heart of pain, lead you through darkness and out into light and self acceptance, out into healing and self-love. Most of the poems are brief, but what power is in their brevity! I hope to see another collection from Ms. Umebinyuo soon; in the meantime, I'm sure this collection will stay with me for quite awhile.
May 2, 2016
wonderful book of poetry.
You must let the pain visit.
You must allow it to teach you.
You must not allow it to overstay.
You must let the pain visit.
You must allow it to teach you.
You must not allow it to overstay.
September 3, 2017
"She was always a wildflower - even her sadness, like water, helped her grow."
January 4, 2018
This was my first poetry book. I did really enjoy it and I especially think this is very important and empowering for young black woman!
April 26, 2017
This book. This work. It's the third book of poetry I've read in the last two years. I like it a lot better than the other two. Mainly because I felt like the poems had a flow. At times it felt like I was reading a short story collection. It felt like I was reading the thoughts of women at a gathering, a healing space/circle. But one woman is speaking life into them all. I held my chest so many times reading this. A lot of tears too. I could relate to so many poems. Some of my favorites are below. I recommend this for any WOC, especially African women living on the continent and in the diaspora. I'm sure many women will find their feelings and emotions they previously could not explain or make sense of so eloquently described. Well done, Ijeoma.
1.
the happiness when it comes,
when it stays,
my goodness it makes you look so beautiful
come closer.
2.
you are living
you are breathing
perhaps a bit hurt
perhaps a bit pained
but
you are breathing
you are breathing
and that is enough to wake
the angels still living
in your chest.
3. (I loved this prior to getting the book. Saw it online somewhere)
You must let the pain visit.
You must allow it teach you.
You must not allow it overstay.
4.
Tell me:
now you are here,
will you either or bloom?
Too many favorites but these stuck out to me today.
1.
the happiness when it comes,
when it stays,
my goodness it makes you look so beautiful
come closer.
2.
you are living
you are breathing
perhaps a bit hurt
perhaps a bit pained
but
you are breathing
you are breathing
and that is enough to wake
the angels still living
in your chest.
3. (I loved this prior to getting the book. Saw it online somewhere)
You must let the pain visit.
You must allow it teach you.
You must not allow it overstay.
4.
Tell me:
now you are here,
will you either or bloom?
Too many favorites but these stuck out to me today.
October 22, 2022
Questions for Ada brings in a lot more questions to me while reading it. Yet, also it enlightens me about the experience of being lost, of not belonging anywhere, of life in a postcolonial society with remnants of colonialism, borrowed religions, culture and customs, and even the borrowed language used to write these poems. The poems in this collection give voices to extraordinary nameless women throughout history, with their struggles repeated from generation to generation. There are also pieces about the difficulties of navigating adulthood, in a child-like mind. Sometimes the poems could be depressing, with recurrent themes of insomnia as the narrators stay awake at 3:00 am and lovers that leave them. Yet in the end, they also teach that pains do not last forever.
My favourite poem:
Diaspora blues
So,
here you are
too foreign for home
too foreign for here.
Never enough for both.
Second most favourite:
you are not weak
you are just tired
for now.
you are not quitting
i know you
i know you
you are just resting,
darling.
My favourite poem:
Diaspora blues
So,
here you are
too foreign for home
too foreign for here.
Never enough for both.
Second most favourite:
you are not weak
you are just tired
for now.
you are not quitting
i know you
i know you
you are just resting,
darling.
October 18, 2020
There aren't even poems to cover the blood spilling in Gombe. There aren't enough poems to cover the blood spilling in Borno. You say write love poems but baby my people are dying and all they've got left of love is rotting somewhere in the chests of mothers tired of screaming...
Oh how relevant and heart breaking this poem is especially now with people fighting for their lives all over Africa.
Oh how relevant and heart breaking this poem is especially now with people fighting for their lives all over Africa.
January 27, 2018
Poignant and beautiful poetry.
August 27, 2019
Quite impressed by it.
However, I’d like to read more poetry from her when it’s more seasoned... more refined with age.
A decent debut altogether.
However, I’d like to read more poetry from her when it’s more seasoned... more refined with age.
A decent debut altogether.
March 16, 2020
Ijeoma reminded me that I am beautiful, and stronger than I think. She made me want to dance with joy at being, and she reduced me to tears. She made me want to write and write and write...
April 12, 2022
“you are not alive
to please the aesthetic
of colonized eye.”
“The youths decided to take
matters into their own hands,
asking how you pray
to know if today
will be your last.”
“So,
here you are
too foreign for home
too foreign for here.
never enough for both.”
to please the aesthetic
of colonized eye.”
“The youths decided to take
matters into their own hands,
asking how you pray
to know if today
will be your last.”
“So,
here you are
too foreign for home
too foreign for here.
never enough for both.”
February 10, 2024
"You are crying and the angels sit comforting God, telling her to stop feeling so pained. 'Where does it hurt?' they ask, she points to you."
April 19, 2020
What an incredibly thought provoking book of poetry. I loved every word. I felt every pose and was heartbroken when it ended. I purchased the ebook but I'm definitely going to get a physical copy ASAP, I need this in my collection. There's also another cover that's breathtaking.
December 27, 2021
I discovered this about 16 and this is my 3rd or 4th read over the past few years (I’m 23 now).
And clearly (and obviously) my view has changed. It’s very much a vibes poetry book? Poems soaked in lyricism and images that are just a bit random and at times hotepish (I’m sorry!)
I really loved this anthology when I was younger but it really hasn’t aged well for me because it doesn’t say much of anything. And when it does, it has this level of faux depth.
It resonates maybe when you stumble across random poems or parts when you’re going through stuff (depending) but it’s largely just not great and I really wish it was.
And clearly (and obviously) my view has changed. It’s very much a vibes poetry book? Poems soaked in lyricism and images that are just a bit random and at times hotepish (I’m sorry!)
I really loved this anthology when I was younger but it really hasn’t aged well for me because it doesn’t say much of anything. And when it does, it has this level of faux depth.
It resonates maybe when you stumble across random poems or parts when you’re going through stuff (depending) but it’s largely just not great and I really wish it was.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 277 reviews