Poems About Africa | My Mother's Land

Poems About Africa | “My Mother’s Land by Eno Edet

Stepping off the plane
I smell rawness in the air

Although this smell is foreign
I’m not scared, nor do I despair

This is my home
I realize
As my cousins touch and feel my face

Everything here is new to me
But
My body feels odd familiar in this place

I look around
And everyone is either
A different shade of brown or black

Their clothes are hand-made
They balance food on their heads
And the women were carry laughing babies on their back

We didn’t need electricity to entertain

We shared stories
And made paper boats
To float

When it started to rain

At night the elders sang and danced
As I watched the fire burn

I sat in my mother’s land
As Africa celebrated their daughter’s glorious return

About Eno Edet

My name is Eno and I am a children’s author who finds humor and absurdity in the bleakest situations. I have spent nearly a decade in New York City’s underground, and now I dedicate my time to creating strange literature. My passion is creating books. Each one of my books is handcrafted. I bind the book, and create narrative and illustrations. What started off as a therapeutic outlet, became a full-time obsession. Everything I see, I turn into a book. With the support of local bookstores, my titles have become underground favorites.

I am the product of an arranged marriage. My mother grew up in the Nigerian slums during 60s, and no one in her family had gotten past high school. That didn’t deter my mother; she fought hard and excelled in her studies. My mother and her family knew that the only way she was going to have a better life, was if she went to America. Through her sister, my mom got in contact with my dad, who was a friend of her sister and studying at Columbia University. My father said he would marry her so she could come to America. In a matter of a week, my mother was on a plane to New York. Having never met each other before, the two met at JFK airport, went down to the courthouse and got married. I came a couple years later, and my sisters came a couple years after me. During this time, my mother earned several degrees and had a steady job. She decided to go back to Africa in 1992, with her three kids in tow. The kicker was that she didn’t tell anyone she was coming back.

The poem, My Mother’s Land, begins with my first reactions getting off the plane…

Eno Edet

Eno Edet is a children’s author who finds humor and absurdity in the bleakest situations. He's spent nearly a decade in New York City’s underground, and now dedicates his time to creating strange literature. Each one of his books is handcrafted from the binding to the narrative to the illustration. With the support of local bookstores, his titles have become underground favorites.