An Introduction to Ayomide Festus by Kristina Marie Darling


Ayomide Festus offers stunning, singing lyric fragments that weave together myth and postmodern experimental forms. Yet at the same time, Festus is a gifted storyteller. This poem expertly uses rupture, interruption, white space, and elision in service of this narrative impulse, imbuing innovation with affect in a way that is all too rare in contemporary poetry. With that in mind, Festus’s work is as timely as it is timeless.