Niyi Osundare has heralded the arrival of “The Years of Blood,” Adedayo Agarau’s debut full-length poetry collection from Fordham University Press saying that “in the haunting horrorscape of these poems, crying bones usurp the streets; ‘days of vanishing’ darken into nights of wrenching anguish.”
The powerful endorsement for the Wallace Stegner Fellow’s collection set for release on September 2, 2025 and now available for pre-order, accompanied by the reveal of its striking cover has sent ripples through literary circles.
Designed by acclaimed Nigerian abstract photographer Ololade Olawale, the cover features a spectral figure draped in white fabric against a sepia-toned background—a visual metaphor perfectly capturing the collection’s exploration of memory, disappearance, and the space between remembrance and forgetting.
Agarau’s manuscript was selected by Elisabeth Frost and JoAnne McFarland for the Poetic Justice Institute Editor’s Prize for a BIPOC Writer. Osundare’s endorsement carries particular weight given the thematic connections between his own work documenting Nigeria’s sociopolitical landscape and Agarau’s unflinching examination of ritual killings and child abductions that continue to plague the country.
“Here is a prime instance of poems unafraid of showing and telling,” Osundare notes, praising the collection’s ability to both evoke and directly confront trauma while achieving “a stunning balance between verbal density, formal experimentation, and intensity of content.”
The collection has garnered extraordinary praise from other leading poets as well. Remica Bingham-Risher observes that “Evil is a question for God and beauty emerges despite what the politicians have ruined,” while Aracelis Girmay, author of the black maria, praises Agarau’s “exquisite sensitivity” in writing “a history in which the personal and lyrical necessarily run through its marrow.”
“The Years of Blood” unflinchingly confronts Nigeria’s history of ritual killings, kidnapping dens and child abductions—horrific realities that have persisted from the pre-democratic era into the present day. Through dreamlike imagery and broken, repetitive language, Agarau documents how political instability and corruption enabled these atrocities.
Personal poems like “Salt water” and “Sọ́kà” (named after a notorious kidnapping den discovered in Ibadan) detail the trauma of communities where children simply vanished. The collection also explores the spiritual and economic motivations behind these sacrifices, where human body parts were harvested for rituals meant to bring wealth and power.
As one poem states, “Memory forsakes the body at the point where fear fills the body like air”—a sentiment visually echoed in the cover’s ghostly figure, which seems to embody both presence and absence simultaneously.
“With this collection, Agarau establishes himself as a visionary… invested in bringing to mind the beauty and brutality of his community,” says Michael Aderibigbe.
The poet’s credentials are impressive. Adedayo Agarau is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, a Cave Canem Fellow, and was a 2024 Ruth Lilly-Rosenberg Fellowship finalist. He previously authored two chapbooks: Origin of Name (African Poetry Book Fund, 2020) and The Arrival of Rain (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020).
Most recently, Agarau was selected for the prestigious 2025 Poets & Writers Get the Word Out Program, a publicity incubator supporting early career writers with their debut or second major book publications. He was chosen alongside nine other promising poets whose work is forthcoming in 2025 or 2026.
This debut collection marks a significant addition to contemporary African poetry, with Osundare—one of Africa’s foremost poets and literary critics whose numerous awards include the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Noma Award, and the ANA/Cadbury Prize—lending his considerable authority to introduce Agarau to a wider audience.
The Poetic Justice Institute continues its mission of publishing extraordinary poetry by BIPOC writers with this selection, promoting work that contributes to contemporary literary conversations while challenging readers to engage with important social, political, and cultural issues.
Fordham University Press, established in 1907, adds “The Years of Blood” to its distinguished catalogue of scholarly books in the humanities and social sciences, as well as works of poetry that explore pressing contemporary issues.
“The Years of Blood” is available for pre-order now at Fordham University Press and will be released on September 2, 2025.
