#igbo
Step by step it flows
Unleashing trapped desires
Edifying body and soul
Unifying humankind in entire.
Reaching within depths untold
Possessing, with grooves so bold
With rhythmic waves and strides
Varying from tribe to tribe.
Dancing is a rite
Not a mere reaction to music
Dancing is a language
Spoken in the voice of the body
As music transpires with bodies
Bodies of beautiful maidens
Bodies- voluptuous, with sweat
Leaving our warriors gasping!
Dancing to the beats
Dancing to the rhythm
Dancing in the heat
Like horses never ridden
Dancing is a bond unbroken
An expression of feelings unspoken
Well spoken by the untrained
Well grasped by the unlearned
Birthing in the cries of Ogene
Riding on the waves of Udu
Floating on the wings of Ekwe
Gliding in the ripples of Oja
It is the essence of our tradition
Passed from generations of old
We express it proudly
As we answer the call of Igba.
© Raphael Uzor
Mar 3, 2014
Mar 3, 2014 at 8:14 AM UTC
She said she was Ibo
And spoke with a fake accent
Wanna’s and gonna’s
Littered her speech
Not a trace of Igbo, in her exotic accent.
She smirked boldly
As I answered my phone
Greeting my friend natively
In a lavish of deep expressions
So deep, only Ndi Igbo can share.
With a ****** passport
She spoke better than most Britons
She was born in her village
Yet all she knows is “bia”
She thinks she’s cool, I think she’s lost!
The whole point of wooing her
An “mgbe-eke” from the east
Was so we could regularly, take a break
From all formalities and English
And bask in mother tongues…
I might as well be yoked
With a foreign damsel
For the whole purpose of looking within
Is defeated if your tongue is white
And we can only commune in “oyibo”
Call me tribalistic
Call me uncivilized
Call me superficial if you will
But what you call vernacular
The same is my root. I am proudly Igbo!
© Raphael Uzor
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 6:18 PM UTC
(A Poem Inspired by Igbo Landing)
In the hush of Georgia's morning mist,
Where the reeds whisper secrets the ocean kissed,
A tale still stirs beneath the tide,
Of broken chains and ancient pride.
They came in silence, shackled souls,
From lands where the Baobab consoles,
From the red earth of Igbo land,
Bound by force, not by command.
The slave ship creaked with stolen breath,
Its hull a tomb of living death.
Eyes like storms, yet voices still,
Carried across the ocean’s will.
Through markets loud with foreign tongue,
Their names erased, their stories wrung.
Sold like beasts to soil unknown,
But spirit rooted deep in bone.
To Georgia’s shores they met the day,
Forced to march the master’s way.
But on that creek, near Dunbar's bend,
They found their line, they drew their end.
The whispers came in Igbo speech,
A truth that shackles could not reach.
“The water brought us, it shall take
Us home beneath the silver lake.”
They rose not with sword, nor with fire,
But with defiance that would not tire.
One turned, then all, hand clasped in hand,
They faced the waves, they made their stand.
Into the depths, they chose to go,
Where no whip cracks, where no tears flow.
No master’s name to stain the tongue,
No life in ******* to be wrung.
They walked as gods, not broken men,
Refused the yoke, returned again
To ancestors who waited still
Beyond the sea, beyond the hill.
And now the wind, it hums their song,
The creeks remember what was wrong.
The water holds their solemn vow:
"We bent then but never now."
Their tale was buried, whispered low,
But spirits rise where rivers flow.
At Igbo Landing, silence breaks
Each ripple knows the stand they made.
So let this be their legacy:
A story not of slavery
But of a people, proud and free,
Who claimed their final destiny.
For the Igbos who chose the water,
May your courage flow forever.
Oct 15, 2025
Oct 15, 2025 at 4:14 AM UTC