'Spinal fusion and other ways to stay upright' by Emike Akagbosu - Preorder

“This collection hums with echoes of place, of roots stretching through memory. A tapestry of longing and belonging unfurls; “Who are you this time? You’ve forgotten the sweat.” Elsewhere, a voice rises, urgent and tender; “some memories I carve/ my initials into with all their edges/ tethered to a faraway thing”.

In an examination of the distances between home and belonging, how that relates to familial ties and how stretched they can become, this pamphlet is a textured thing. With pain hiding behind back teeth and rattles from within chest cavities, the attention is always brought back to the body – perhaps the only true home we ever inhabit, and indeed the ways we can keep it standing upright.

“I hope to die on my feet””

This is a preorder for release May 2025

“Emike Akagbosu writes with a quiet delicacy and thoughtfulness that belies this being her first publication. She weaves open space into her work giving space to settle in, to really meet her in the poem so that we almost feel like we are joining her in a prayer – the soft, silent place between breaths where we understand that some poetry isn’t there to just be got, it’s there to be felt. A deft, confident debut pamphlet from a poet I am excited to read more from in future”

Leah Atherton

 

“Emike Akagbosu’s poetry has the weight and feel of something resembling a polished tiger stone. It is layered, complex, and only more beautiful by withstanding the granular hardships it depicts.

From the very first poem you are hit hard with this collection’s manifesto which calmly states that it will not shy away from telling you the truth, which you will consume in uncomfortable delight. It lists the mundane, it makes pronouncements about God, and it even almost plays you “Middle C”, allowing all your senses to bask in the scenes which are depicted.

Every phrase and lin hold a surprising new perspective from the “hearts as dumb as elbows” to “pious pilgrim arms”