Oboido sings of and powerfully negotiates the Africa that is alive and strong alongside the new world, where “the traveler washes his migrant feet / with the wetness of dawn” and where “the road has mouth like a boa.” This is a book filled with wisdom of a poet that fearlessly takes us by the hand into a world beyond the metaphor of home, opening us to new images that are African and yet not so African. Sometimes, in lyrical narrative, the poet juxtaposes western cities with African cities, challenging our image of Lagos, London, and New York, bringing us along his journey from the hills of Kisii into Nairobi, and then to the plains of Kitengela and back home to Nigeria, West Africa, because the poet is “bound by no birth cord.”
–Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, author of Where the Road Turns and When the Wanderers Come Home
Order from any bookstore, local or online. This title is also available from of Galveston, Texas.
Godspower Oboido is a Nigerian poet and cultural researcher. Critics have described his poetic voice as both matured and assured, comparable to the voices of Christopher Okigbo and Leopold Senghor, leading figures in African poetry and writers who have influenced Oboido’s work. Some regard Oboido as one of the most promising and distinguished contemporary poets representing the future of Nigerian literature. Wandering Feet on Pebbled Shores is his second book, following Songs of a Chicken Bone. His poetry has appeared in The Istanbul Review, The Indiana Voice Journal, African Writer and other literary journals.