Safia Elhillo has been awarded the Brunel University African Poetry Prize as well as the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. She has received numerous fellowships and her poetry has appeared in several journals. She has also participated in TEDXNew York. Her collection of poetry, The January Children, explores identity in relation to nationhood and how to traverse a newly postcolonial world.

I Guess By Now I Thought I'd Be Done With Shame

but I opened my coat to prove a point

and kept coming home with colds.

I thought I was done stuffing fists in my mouth to mute the sound.

Done lying about what trails my throat

had charted. I practiced looking tall

men in the eye, spoke loudly,

pronounced every 'R.'

I chopped wood at midnight.

I left the shower and kept

singing. I sand about my body

like I was proud. I was proud.

Summer time is the perfect time to get reading. Now get in your car and drive to the nearest bookstore, and for the less actively inclined, go to Amazon and start supporting these incredibly talented poets. You will not be disappointed. If anything, you might walk away more whole–a transformed human being who understands that they need self-love, self-care and that they are not alone.

Ijeoma Umebinyuo

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