Winged Witnesses (University of Nebraska Press, 2025)
“I am so moved by these poems, their simultaneous awe and grief, the authority and aliveness of the lyric. Chisom Okafor is an incredibly gifted poet, and Winged Witnesses is a wonder.” —Safia Elhillo, author of The January Children.
“Winged Witnesses shimmers with an abundance of interiority and grace. With imagination and deep regard, Chisom Okafor reminds us that we are the kin of each other, flowers, song, stars. And so: a flower sprouts in the head and the voice of a boy is ‘an undecipherable murmur of expelled rain.’ Our bodies written with each other. Each of us ‘a story hidden within a story.’” —Aracelis Girmay, author of the black maria and Kingdom Animalia.
All I Know About a Heavy Heart Is How to Carry It (Jacar Press, 2025)
“All I Know About a Heavy Heart Is How to Carry It is a celebrated revival of the
absorbing language of an observant writer who raises and struggles with
the right questions that the heart requires answering. Chisom Okafor, from
Nigeria, does not spoon-feed simplicity but poetically restores chaos and
complexity as a universal way of seeing and writing that demands so much
more but offers even more in return. This collection of poetry interrogates
what it means to be human and vulnerable through raw fierce and unflinching
energy that sweeps the reader through unexpected passages and dislocations.” —Jaki Shelton Green, poet Laurete of North Carolina.
Chisom Okafor 