Yellow Iris

included in Eight New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set

Akashic Books

Kofi-Tsekpo’s collection reveals a poet of tremendous maturity, clarity, and vision. This explains the polish of her work, the deft weave of words and music (tonal and atonal), the assurance of a mature line, and the settling into short forms that turn so much… This collection also reveals an understanding of myth and symbolism that this poet wields with an impressive command but deploys always with a deep faith in the reader’s ability not only to understand the work conceptually but also to also engage and experience it viscerally.

Chris Abani, from the preface

Noli Me Tangere

In his pink-yellow salmah
he sees her. I see you, she says,
walking here alone. Just like that worm

split by the gardener’s hoe,

spread across the grass,
struggling to be whole
there in the earth’s damp spot.
Don’t touch me, he says.

Her hands are golden fires;
they lick His feet.

Janet Kofi-Tsekpo, “Noli Me Tangere”