Ribcage and Ribbon
“But isn’t it beautiful how I corral / the rifts with / metaphors? How I language / worry with wreaths”
Michael Imossan is a poet and editor of Ibibio origin. He is the author of the award-winning chapbook For the Love of Country and Memory (Poetrycolumn-NND, 2022). He is also the author of the chapbook The Smell of Absence (Akashic Books, 2025). He is the winner of the 2024 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry, with a debut collection forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press in 2026. He is a recipient of the PEN International Writers Grant and is currently enrolled in an MFA program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“But isn’t it beautiful how I corral / the rifts with / metaphors? How I language / worry with wreaths”