Perigee

There Are Women and There Are Djinn

My great-grandfather was a scholar who taught the Quran to djinn, never accepting payment, so as not to bind himself to them. I want to believe this. That my great-grandfather was a person so powerful, he believed what he saw. A person so certain of his faith and his strength, he did something scary because he had to.

“Freedom from Relevancy”: Walter Ancarrow interviewed by Samantha Neugebauer

Etymologies, Ancarrow's first collection of poetry, is a sort of reference work. It reminds me of David Bowie's comment: "Don't you love the Oxford Dictionary? When I first read it, I thought it was a really really long poem about everything." Etymologies is not long, but it might be about everything; in particular, it might, in looking at the origins of the words we use to describe ourselves, be about our own origins—or our inability to know them.

On Beauty and Surveillance: A Review of Concentrate by Courtney Faye Taylor

When Courtney Faye Taylor begins her stunning debut collection, Concentrate—sat between her aunties thighs, getting her hair pressed—I am immediately transported back to my own childhood. Adolescence is a time of innocence and curiosity, as well as a lesson in contrasts: the sting of beauty upkeep and the confidence of a fresh hair-do, the validation of attention and the safety of invisibility. From the book’s opening section, Taylor makes it clear that Concentrate will stretch the expanse of what a poetry collection is allowed to do. 

Announcing Apogee Issue 18

Dear Apogee readers… Welcome to Issue 18. In these words and works, we invite you to bear witness to a myriad of existences. We dream of a lingua franca rising up, an undying link between our respective dystopias. Draw strength from us, from our mission, from our writers and their work, and explore our latest issue today.

Do Things Well

Iya Chinyere was having a bad year. Her business was not doing well, her daughter’s school fees were past due, and her husband had finally left her for a mama-put owner on the next street. It had been bad enough when he had simply been sleeping with one of the maids of the rich family next door; she had resented that woman’s superior tone when she told Nneoma that she needed to “control her husband,” as if she handpicked his affairs.
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