The Poetry of Sacrifice and Ritual Killings in Nigeria

In an era where stories of violence and disappearance dominate headlines, how does poetry bear witness to the unspeakable? Adedayo Agarau's debut collection of verse, The Years of Blood, confronts one of Nigeria's most harrowing realities: the ritual killings and child abductions that terrorized communities during the country's turbulent transition from military rule to democracy. Set against the backdrop of rural Ibadan, these poems plunge readers into a hellscape where "crying bones usurp the streets" and memory becomes both vital and ungraspable.

As both survivor and émigré, Agarau explores how trauma crosses continents and searches the ways a poet might craft an elegy. This is not a collection that offers consolation—instead, it attempts to wrest language from terror's domain, creating what aracelis girmay has described as "an impossible ceremony of remembrance, love, and grief." Agarau will discuss the urgency of documenting dimly recorded political violence, the intersection of personal and collective memory, and how poetry can transform unspeakable experience into essential witness.

Clio's is honored to host Adedayo Agarau for this event on September 18th; we will be donating a portion of the evening's proceeds to support Agbowó Magazine: A Journal of African Literature and Art. Gentle reader, do not miss this one.

Adedayo Agarau was awarded the Poetic Justice Institute Editor's Prize for BIPOC Writers for The Years of Blood (Fordham University Press, Fall 2025). He is a Wallace Stegner Fellow '25, a Cave Canem Fellow, and a 2024 Ruth Lilly-Rosenberg Fellowship finalist. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Agbowó Magazine: A Journal of African Literature and Art and a Poetry Reviews Editor for The Rumpus. He is the author of the chapbooks Origin of Name (African Poetry Book Fund, 2020) and The Arrival of Rain (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020).

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