Bio
Obiotika Wilfred Toochukwu is a Nigerian writer whose work moves between poetry, creative nonfiction, and reflective essays, with a sustained interest in memory, cultural identity, and the moral tensions of contemporary life. His writing has appeared in Flora, Oriire, Fiction Online, Confetti, and other local and international literary journals. Rooted in disciplined practice, he approaches writing as both ritual and inquiry; often returning to drafts through cycles of silence, revision, and re-seeing. His work is marked by a lean, image-driven style that privileges emotional clarity over ornament, and a commitment to rehumanizing narratives shaped by social and existential pressures. Beyond publication, he continues to refine his voice through sustained reading, teaching, and engagement with evolving literary forms. He is currently working on a long-form creative nonfiction project exploring family, loss, and inheritance, while expanding his poetic archive toward broader global conversations.
Obiotika Wilfred
Black Soil
We forget the past to dream the future,
yet devotion calls us to remember.
I raise my eyes—the hawk halts its hunger.
I am the child of soil and ancestry,
buried once, yet born again in loam.
My roots speak through the hum of leaves.
Devotion built the bridge between drums and jazz—
between Lagos dusk and Harlem dawn.
Through the ache of dark waters
our tongues found rhythm, our bodies praise.
O ancestors—Senghor, Nkrumah, Nyerere.
You planted courage in the language of loss.
You sowed selfhood in the song of strangers.
To have straight eyes is to look inward.
To have a full heart is to serve the dream.
Devotion redeems the dance before forgetting begins.