Hussain Ahmed is the author of Soliloquy with the Ghosts in Nile (Black Ocean Press, 2022) and Blue Exodus (Orison Books, 2024). He won the 2024 Gulf Coast Poetry Prize and the 2024 Black Warrior Review Poetry Contest. Ahmed’s poems have been featured in Poetry magazine, The Nation, American Poetry Review, A Public Space, and elsewhere. A Nigerian poet and environmentalist, Ahmed holds an MFA from the University of Mississippi and is completing a doctoral degree at the University of Cincinnati.
Poetry
Spring 2025
Son of Gold
After Àyìnlá OmowúràWhen thirsty, I have learnedto ignore the reflections in the water.It was my turn to sit in the cold,our neighborhood was under siege.On such nights, I suspect every […]
Poetry
Spring 2025
Death in a Pouch
Water no get enemy, if you fight am unless you wan die Omi o l’ota o, water, e no get enemy —Fela KutiI have been reckless in the past; I […]
Poetry
Spring 2025
Crown Made from the Sun
After King Sunny AdeI rolled a ring of magnetsthrough the canals that lead in and out of my city,in search of the crown made from the sun.I thought, like Lot’s […]
Poetry
May/June 2021
Blue Water
The water remained blue across centuries of swallowing. Because it is not a cemetery, it does not date its memories. On the sky is a diary that cataloged eyes lost […]