“The poems in Ismail Bala’s Memory of Departure are poems that poets at the peak of their powers hope to write. His imagination is vast, his lines are deep and the magic of his intertextual renderings have a texture all their own. These are mature poems for mature readers who value the lyric moment. By all means, get this collection, brew your coffee or tea and journey to places beyond liminality and lore as you savour these poems. Bala is that rare thing even among poets: the poet sage.”
—Tade Ipadeola, author of The Sahara Testaments
“Ismail Bala’s poetry combines lyrical intimacy, intertextual allusion, and meditative eroticism, occasionally evoking the sensuous attention of Impressionism, but always grounded in narrative consciousness. In Memory of Departure, he maps affection as a site of existential introspection, where the body, human or otherwise, embodies memory, desire, and relational power, inseparable from philosophical reflection.”
—Tolulope Oke, Publisher, Lunaris Review
“Ismail Bala's Memory of Departure is an arresting poetic offering that guides us through the labyrinth of life and events that are both revelatory and transformative. Profoundly written and exquisitely musical, this collection presents a great network of timely tropes in ways that remind us of the endless grace of survival, nature's abundant gifts, memories' unwaring return, and all the things quiet and breathing. We are made to witness this mural of losses, of aches, of joy, and of the infinite power of poetry to be the fire that rages. This is a beautiful collection!”
—Rasaq Malik Gbolahan, author of The Origin of Wounds
“Silky, supple, steady, singly, the poems in Memory of Departure come together to “fulfil a new kind of sensual pleasure.” Refreshing, intoxicating, sometimes caramelised, the poems trace your veins, your nerves, and become one with the pulp of your psyche. Flipping circular sights of daylight and nighttide, yearnings and undertones, Ismail Bala writes with the intuition of reverie. A poet alive to all seasons, Bala looks at the body, the sky, the ocean, the eternal, and makes room for all.”
—David Ishaya Osu
“Bala is devoted to tenderness. His voice is soft, his diction, delicate and precise; scalpel slicing through skin of eros. In Memory of Departure, image is religion, language is libation.”
—Jide Badmus, author of Obaluaye
“Reading Memory of Departure is like being in the sweet echoes, in the plush garden where a gathering of voices is stirred into a symphony. Here is a book you will enjoy with its many ‘lighted’ windows where we are forced to not just look but to perceive. This is poetry of such precision and ardour.”
—Saddiq Dzukogi, Author of Your Crib, My Qibla, Finalist for the Nigeria Prize for Literature
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