In the salty sea air of Mombasa
— on a house at the edge of a tangerine glove,
I question the literalism of sadness,
how a boy becomes fiend to writing the rueful,
when a home is made the place
where smiles only appear for an instance
then recede gradually to become gritted teeth.
Frank Njugi
is a Kenyan self-taught writer, page poet, culture journalist and critic living in Nairobi. Some of his accolades include being a Pushcart Prize Nominee 2023, being named runners-up in the 2023 ILS – Fence Fellowship seminar and appearing in the Longlist of the inaugural Akachi Chukwuemeka Prize for Literature. In early 2024, he was among the recipients of the inaugural Sevhage-Agema Founder’s Prize. An alumni of the Nairobi Writing Academy, he currently serves as the East African correspondent for African and Black Media Publication, Afrocritik. He tweets as @franknjugi.