PROJECTS
African, American
60 pages. 5″ x 7″. August, 2019. NDR. $12.
Design and layout by Laura Theobald.
The winner of NDR’s 8th Annual Chapbook Contest, African, American is a poetry chapbook that continually renegotiates the relationships between Nigeria and The United States, family and nationality, written and spoken language, domestic and public space, Blackness, racism and identity. With unfaltering tenderness and radical honesty, Falomo moves in that liminal space to expand our definition of what it means to “document.” Selah Saterstrom, the judge of this year’s contest, writes of African, American: “I am blown away by the energy Ayokunle Falomo transmutes into the line: the way he rebloods the meat of the breath-wrapped and delivered word. Falomo reminds us that the body is always a revelatory body; a place of reading. A place where shatter-conjunctions acquire legibility; where documents and certificates seam-up with lamentation-celebrations. I keep thinking of this work as a match that brings light and fire into this long, long night.” For a preview, check out this poem, which was published in NDR (Issue 9.2)
kin.DREAD is a memoir of sorts. It is the story of a life examined through the lens of kinship and dread. What is investigated and shared about family, culture, heritage, spirituality, sexuality, origin, and the journey towards personhood reveals an intersection between the two concepts.
My works give a portrait of a writer who is undaunted, someone who is not afraid to delve into the darkness of our stories, but that is only partly the truth. The truth is this: there are things about us, about our stories as human that I'm afraid of. I dread some of the things that my pen - which has taken the form of a shovel - unearths about the things that make us human. There is an unveiled darkness, and pain, and hurt in our stories, and it scares me to the bones. Yet, I approach it.
With that said, I’d like to suggest that what readers familiar with my work have applauded for its unrestrained vulnerability is merely me dipping my toes in near-freezing waters. kin.DREAD is me venturing into different territories. It’s me going a step further. It’s me submerging my whole body, diving in, headfirst!
kin.DREAD is a personal invitation to the most intimate parts of my life (and yours). It is a dare to come closer and see the many lives & stories of myself and those closest to me (kin) as well as the fears (dread) that are even closer than they are.
About "thread, this wordweaver must!"
The author has with this collection of poems woven a tapestry using the threads from our interconnected stories. There are threads of red, of blue, and white, and green, and black that make up this tapestry. As much as we are tempted to remove some, they all belong here.
There are poems in this collection that prompt us to take specific and urgent actions, especially in regards to how we respond to the threads of different colors from ours; and there are poems that call us to celebration. You are invited to join in to behold the beauty of the tapestry, and if you dare, contribute a thread.
Inspired by the first line of Coldplay's song, A Message (which in turn was inspired by the hymn, My Song Is Love Unknown), "my song is love" is an audio project of love poems by the poet - Ayokunle Falomo.
The audio project starts with"introlude" - a sound bite from his mom about what love is and transitions into Ayokunle's thoughts on what "Love Is..." After presenting "a song in the key of love," inspired by and a tribute to Stevie Wonder's extensive discography, Ayokunle takes a brief moment in "Ayo's Interlude" to muse over a love that does not yet exist. The next two poems that follow his interlude ("aisthēsis" - which stands for general perception with all the senses, as well as the impression that the perceived leaves on the body; and "Butterfly") continue his musings by sharing, though inspired by real interactions, idealistic representations of love.
As the project draws closer to an end, Paul Tripp in "Paul's Interlude" invites the listener to view love not merely from a romantic perspective, which then leads the poet, in "aGAPe," following a beautiful rendition of the hymn - Amazing Grace by Victoria Gbenjo and a piano accompaniment by Brian Rincon, to marvel at and attempt to understand the incomprehensibility of the kind of love Paul describes. The project stops with "stop", while extending an invitation to the listener to do the same, as a way to pay attention to loved ones. As he says in his closing words, "a lot of things happen, even when we STOP."
(C) Released February 14, 2016
Credit: Heart featured on the cover art for the project was designed by Kara Gray for TEDxHouston 2015.