Each time we go to war, We make love to destruction & Bring beauty to its knees...

Jide Badmus, Cliche

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Jide Badmus is an engineer, a poet inspired by beauty and destruction; he believes that things in ruins were once beautiful.

Author of There is a Storm in my Head ; Scripture; Paper Planes in the Rain; Paradox of Little Fires; Silk Psalms; Anatomy of the Sun (and everything beneath); Lust Alphabets; and Obaluaye (FlowerSong Press, 2022). What Do I Call My Love for Your Body, forthcoming from Roaring Lion Newcastle (September 2022). He has a Pushcart Prize nomination.

Badmus has curated/edited anthologies such as Vowels Under Duress; Coffee; Today, I Choose Joy; and How to Fall in Love.

He is founder, INKspiredNG, Poetry Editor for Con-scio Magazine, and sits on the board of advisors for Libretto Magazine.

Jide writes from Lagos, Nigeria. He tweets @bardmus

Enjoy some of my work

Brevity, Ambiguity & the Language of Desire

A poem is a drug. It cures you of something—albeit temporarily. It serves as an intermission from the thing...

The Vacuum

The sirens jolted you back to life — light had just been restored. For a minute you could not...

Take My Breathe Away

Doubt is a benign lump in the throat of mind. The grief that accompanies dawn is always an ignored spectre, lurking, waiting...

BLACK TRUTH, WHITE LIES

My colleagues say I sit on the fence a lot. As if that is a comfortable space to be. It is generally believed...

HEAVEN HAS COME

I spent half of the time in church last Sunday silently fighting distraction. The lady seated in front of me donned a plush Afro....

OF LOVE & ALLERGIES: A review of Dami Ajayi’s Affection & Other Accidents

Poetry has thrived, over time, on two contrasting themes: Love & Grief. They are mostly treated as two extremes but masters of the art see beyond...

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