Leaked Footages
by Abu Bakr Sadiq
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Pub Date Nov 01 2024 | Archive Date Oct 31 2024
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Description
The poems in Leaked Footages carry urgent subjects, ranging from death to disappearance to grief to memory. Not only do the poems fulfill the tradition of witnessing often manifested in contemporary poets such as Garous Abdolmalekian and Ilya Kaminsky, but they extend that tradition by the medium through which they witness: the technical and the technological. Here, the camera, the closed-circuit TV, cinematographic techniques, and the cyborg are trusted for truth telling. Reality is represented in footage seen through the eyes of multifaceted speakers.
In Abu Bakr Sadiq’s exploration of northern Nigeria in speculative poetry, the lyrical meets the chronicle. In this fusion of Afrofuturism with experimental poetic techniques, the reader witnesses a country ravaged by terrorism and the consequences of war, as well as the effects of these on those who survive. While the tone is grave with concern and conscience, the poems do not take the easy route of sentiment. Instead, attention is paid to structure—from the erasure poems that are informed by the theme of disappearance to the contrapuntal poems that are influenced by the testaments of leaving.
Advance Praise
“In Abu Bakr Sadiq’s Leaked Footages we encounter a speaker addressing us from a richly-imagined future while haunted by the past. The result is an interrogation of the many ways the world can end, the many scales of that apocalypse. These poems haunt me and teach me. Here is a poet I will follow into every future.”—Safia Elhillo, author of Girls That Never Die
“In Abu Bakr Sadiq’s Leaked Footages we enter into a world concerned with untangling the ontological realities of our present-day. Populated with cyborgs and a speaker navigating the violence of their world, there is a deep yearning and precision in the language of these poems aimed at comprehending how we have come to engage one another. The poems here ask what it means to be a person, a Nigerian, a Muslim, in the face of a world so deeply adjudicated by conflict and the myriad lenses of technology. Mediated by the nuances of received narratives, intersecting histories, and family lineages, this book is at once deeply rooted and otherworldly, an oscillation between a kind of distant witnessing, and a meticulously intimate living. Each poem in this collection feels like an arrival!”—Matthew Shenoda, author of The Way of the Earth: Poems
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781496240132 |
| PRICE | $17.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 102 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Hannah D, Bookseller
Incredible collection! I finished reading it and immediately preordered a copy for my person poetry collection. The African Poetry Book Series consistently publishes some of the best contemporary poetry I’ve read and introduces me to writers that I adore! The entire collection is full of outstanding poems but some of my favorites were: “Ars Poetica with a Broken Shahada”, “ my god swears / by the fig, by the olive, by the brightest star, by the prophet who penned no ghazal”, “ Everything I've Lost Returns to Me as Wind”, and “ POST MASSACRE PSYCH EVALUATION”. Deeply touching poems about death, trauma, and grief. Will be recommending this to everyone I know!
Joshua G, Librarian
One of the most incredible combinations of "poetry as witness" combined with speculative poetry that I've ever read. Very brilliant and beautiful collection. Incredible.
McKenzie P, Reviewer
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this collection, however, all thoughts and opinions are my own.
I'm generally quite subjective when I look at poetry. I examine it more with how it left me feeling and less with how well it was constructed. I find myself usually full praise for collections that fall into the "poetry of witness" realm and I assumed that this collection would be no different. It touches on some really difficult topics while mixed with speculative and experimental techniques. There are some really interesting and powerful pieces in this collection, one of my "favorites" being Post Massacre Psyche Evaluation. I'll be keeping an eye out for more by this poet in the future.
Nuha F, Reviewer
Thank you to University of Nebraska and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!
Available Nov 2024.
In his essay, "What Does It Mean To Look At This?", Teju Cole asks us what it means to look at scenes of violence from wars, at destroyed bodies, at distant brutality through our screens.
In Leaked Footages, Abu Bakr Saqid asks the same question. Told through a series of conversations with a cyborg, Sadiq explores the bloody history of Nigeria, including Boko Haram's kidnapping of women and senseless killing of men. Faith, nation, and technology are intertwined, as the book struggles to make meaning of it all.
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