Flames Of Memory

“Flames of Memories is an acutely unforgettable collection of finely wrought poems that ‘draws peace from the blue calm of rowing surf’ presumably even from the annals of chaos. Sumaila is a poet whose eyes are trained to follow the music and sights, sifting out chaff from the ordinary images of daily existence—to show us the mundane is a treasure chest that once able to perceive reveals beauty and complication that not ‘even the dust of Harmattan can swallow’. This is a thoroughly enjoyable offering of poems where the yarn of memory does not come undone, but its seams are reinforced through lines of striking impact by a poet who is attentive. No reader will leave this book ‘with an empty bowl’. Here even the abstract is written as a body seeking a material grounding.”

—Saddiq Dzukogi, author of Your Crib, My Qibla, Winner of Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and Finalist for the Nigeria Prize for Literature

“Flames of Memories is a collection of verse marked by measured clarity and a steady attentiveness to its themes. Moving between love and grief, spiritual trial and political reckoning, the poems explore memory as both a personal inheritance and a collective burden. Rivers, birds, villages, seasons, and silences recur in these pages, anchoring human experience within the natural rhythms that shape life and loss across the African landscape. Drawing from Nigerian realities while gesturing towards wider historical pressures, the collection recalls cycles of joy and sorrow, beauty and violence, abundance and deprivation that have marked both individual lives and the continent at large.”

—S. Su’eddie Vershima Agema, multiple award-winning poet, scholar, and author of Memory & the Call of Waters