the work of carrying myself

It was the early 2000s. Jos, Plateau State in Central Nigeria was a kettle rattling off steam and all else. The yolk-yellow of the sun in Rukuba seeped into the hospital room that noon as my mother brought me forth. I had the same honey-brown skin and rolling tongue as my father, she recalls. I came into the world with a frown, my eyes thankless for being born.

poetry and the making of a girl

I learned early that words could change the temperature of a room. As a child, whenever I cried, someone would hand me a pen and paper. I would stop crying and start writing. I soon realized that language and by effect, poetry, could make the world more tolerable, less nebulous.

Oma is Loud

I perform poetry under the name Oma is Loud.

“Loud” here is not necessarily about volume but about audibility: about being heard. It is my response to cultural habits that have foisted my lips with the multi-layered silences of social conformity. Oma is Loud is my way of saying I intend to be heard, clearly, fully and on purpose.e.

on possessing an artful soul

Something about being an eldest daughter has shaped my way of seeing: an attentiveness to life and its rituals. In reaching toward art, I have fallen headfirst into poetry, theatre, dance, and music. Storytelling, for me, has always meant working across forms, letting each medium carry what the others cannot.

living otherwise

I hold a B.A. in English and Literary Studies from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where I graduated with First Class Honors and was named the Departmental Best Graduating Student of the 2022/23 academic year. As an undergraduate student, I served as Editor-in-Chief of The Muse Journal No. 50. Currently pursuing my Masters at the University of Calgary, I have served as Writer-in-the-schools, commissioned by the Calgary Board of Education and the Dept. of English, UCalgary, to tutor performance poetry as part of the Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program at Queen Elizabeth High School.