Oh boy, the matter plenty,but I go try cut am short.You see dem marks for my face,both the big one and smallsmall ones, and the other onesfor my body, wey you no fit seebecause my clothes dey cover dem,I get gem all for Burma when Ibin dey fight for the British.Yes nau. Na bomb bin explode behindme. Na God say I no go die, my pikin.You see these marks, dem never heal forover forty years. Every night, na so sopain before I fit sleep. Even now, if Itouch dem, I go feel pain.No be your fault, my pikin. No beeven the worst be that. When wecome back from that war, dem no give usanything. Shishi we no see. Na why Icome dey do this security job, na.Na the story be that oo. Thankyou say you listen oo.
The Porter
D. M. Aderibigbe
Feature Date
Series
Selected By
Share This Poem
Print This Poem
“The Porter” from 82ND DIVISION: by D.M. Aderibigbe.
Published by Akashic Books on December 2, 2025.
Copyright © 2025 by D.M. Aderibigbe.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Photo:
Paul Lijewski
Paul Lijewski
D.M. Aderibigbe was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. He is the author of How the End First Showed,, winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry. He has received fellowships and scholarships from the Mississippi Arts Commission, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the James Merrill House, Provincetown’s Fine Arts Work Center, Art Omi/Ledig House, Ucross Foundation, Jentel Foundation, and Boston University. His poems have appeared in Tatu: New-Generation African Poets, a Chapbook Box Set, the Atlantic, the Nation, Ploughshares, the Southern Review, and New England Review, among others.
The poems in 82nd Division, written in various forms including the villanelle, sonnet, blues poem, duplex, ode, and dramatic monologue, among many others, are collectively a love song to the author’s native Nigeria—a former British colony. In the book, whose title poem chronicles the lives of West African soldiers who fought alongside the British in World War II, Aderibigbe examines his homeland’s colonized past with brutal clarity and striking musicality, and considers how this past continues to shape every facet of his life and contemporary Nigerian life—be it the holidays that are celebrated, the preferred language of interaction among peers and friends, how a mother expresses love to her child, or the type of movies and snacks consumed.
Beyond its thematic unity, lustrous language, and formal virtuosity, this sparkling collection is tied together by Aderibigbe’s graceful exploration of the humanity of the people, landscape, and histories that populate the book’s pages.
“Nigerian poet Aderibigbe chronicles the 82nd West Africa Division, an all-Black unit of soldiers drafted against their will to serve Britain during WWII . . . A poet with an ear for musicality that is both enchanting and sorrowful, Aderibigbe writes at the intersection of West Africa and ‘the West,’ plotting a vision that is both deeply historical and urgently contemporary.”
—Booklist, STARRED review
Poetry Daily Depends on You
With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.
