In the photograph, my father is wearing a white shirt,
the collar slightly turned, the way the breeze remembers him.

They say I walk like him,
one foot folding into the next as if it knows a rhythm I don’t.

My mother says, he loved to whistle while washing his hands,
the water catching the tune before letting it go.

In church, they say, he pressed a note into my palm,
said, ga nye onyinye–go & give offering.

But Onyinye was my sister’s name, the youngest,
her small hands opening like hibiscus in morning rain.

So I carried the note straight to her,
thinking he meant her, thinking she was the offering.

Igbo has many rooms for a word,
one doorway opening into another, & another.

Onyinye: gift, offering, the child herself,
the name a prayer folded into sound.

I do not remember my father’s voice,
only the quiet he left in every room.

Only the way a word can mean
what you give away, & what you keep.

Ókólí Stephen Nonso (he/him) is a Nigerian writer and first-year graduate student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His poetry has appeared in Feral Journal, Ebedi Review, Ngiga Review, Brittle Paper, The Shallow Tales Review, African Writer, Adelaide Literary Magazine (New York), Olney Magazine, Tuck Magazine, Ofi Press, among others. His short fiction is featured in The Best of African Literary Magazine and several national and international anthologies.

He is the 2024 winner of the Muse Journal Award for Best Literary Artist of the Year and a joint winner of the May 2020 Poets in Nigeria (PIN) 10-Day Poetry Challenge. His other honors include first runner-up in the Fresh Voice Foundation Poetry Contest and third prize in the Akuko Magazine Inaugural Prize for Poetry (2021). In 2024, he was also shortlisted for the Akachi Chukwuemeka Prize for Literature. His poem Transcript will be exhibited at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2025. He is also the recipient of the 2025 Achievement Scholarship Award at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

In recognition of his growing literary impact, he was profiled in Who’s Who of Emerging Writers 2021 by Sweetycat Press.

Say hello on X @OkoliStephen7.

Next Page (

Previous Page (