D. M. Aderibigbe

thumb D. M. Aderibigbe (born 1989) is a Nigerian poet based in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He is an assistant professor of creative writing in the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. He is the author of the debut collection of poems, How the End First Showed, which won the Brittingham Prize in Poetry, among other honors. In 2024, Aderibigbe's poetry collection, 82nd Division, was selected for the National Poetry Series, one of the most prestigious poetry book awards in the United States. Quotes I can’t remember the exact title of the poem, but I can still smell the smoke from the danfo bus’s tired tailpipe—I can still feel the boiling breeze of that afternoon. It was the day after the last day of my first year at the University of Lagos. I was on the way to my grandmother’s house in Ikotun. The Hungry Man.” It’s a poem about one evening when my father returned from one of his long absences and found that the pot of yams on the stove was only for my mother, me, and my two sisters. In a fit of rage, he kicked the pot off the stove and stormed out of the house. This poem is the oldest surviving piece in my first collection and also embodies most of the themes in the collection: my father’s absence from home, his rage, and the manifestation of that rage on my mother’s face. In the middle of the newspaper, under a section titled “Arts and Society,” there was a profile of the Nigerian poet Cecilia Kato. It was the first time I had ever read about a living poet or that poetry could be about anything. This incident on the bus breathed into my dormant imagination. That evening, I wrote a poem about my mother’s untimely death. It was the first time I heard the voice of my grief. External links Category:Living people Category:1989 births