This is Lagos

Poetry
Written By Yewande Adebowale

This is Lagos

my city never sleeps

an ever-busy place in constant motion

this is the place that I call home.

Island and mainland dichotomy

partitioned by the sea

and densely populated

this is the place that I call home.

Lagos

lakes and lagoons

city built on the brink of overflowing seas

this is the place that I call home.

Hellish traffic and jolting potholes

open gutters and heaps of litter

bare-chested idlers in neighbourhoods

this is the place that I call home.

Home of diverse tongues and tribes

yellow danfo buses and nocturnal suya

freshly baked agege bread and ewa agoyin

this is the place that I call home.

Photo: Joshua Oluwagbemiga

Photo: Joshua Oluwagbemiga

Yewande Adebowale

Yewande Adebowale is a Nigerian lawyer, storyteller, poet and author of two collections of Poems: A tale of being, of green and of ing..’ (2019) and Voices: A collection of poems that tell stories (2016).

Her works carve a niche of poetic storytelling assuming a prose-like form of creative expression inspired by her African roots. Winner of the Fidelity Bank prize for creative writing, her works are inspired by the realities of life and living, in a poetic and philosophical fashion.

She lives in and writes from the city of Lagos, Nigeria.

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