Bio
Tukur Ridwan (He/Him) is a Nigerian author of three poetry collections, including Silence (2025), and a recipient of the Brigitte Poirson Monthly Poetry Prize (March 2018). His poems were shortlisted in the Bridgette James Poetry Competition (2025), the Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize (2020), and were also published in Zoetic Press, Empyrean Literary Magazine, Suburban Witchcraft Magazine, Afrocritik, Kelp Journal, ArtisansQuill, and elsewhere. He loves black tea, sometimes coffee. Twitter/IG @Oreal2kur
Tukur Loba Ridwan
I Once Taught an Angel how to Hatch
I believe that like water that ripples
To the sound waves of my voice,
Our shadows and mirrors can be invoked.
I once spoke to a boy to crack open his shell,
To see ghosts scampering out of a host—
They inhabited his soul and surfed his bloodstream.
He never saw a treasure when he reflected
In his cup of water, but he managed
To glitter in the dark with his poems.
A boy invoked his shadows and mirrors
By the sound waves of his voice
Like he rippled the water that reflected his face.
I was the boy whose shell was cracked open,
Whose soul and bloodstream housed ghosts,
Who managed to glitter with poetry in the dark.