{"product_id":"winged-witnesses-paperback-softback-9781496243423","title":"Winged Witnesses (Paperback \/ softback) 9781496243423","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eWinged Witnesses\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eChisom Okafor (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781496243423\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 1 December 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e92 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.666 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e“I am so moved by these poems, their simultaneous awe and grief, the authority and aliveness of the lyric. Chisom Okafor is an incredibly gifted poet, and \u003ci\u003eWinged Witnesses\u003c\/i\u003e is a wonder.”—Safia Elhillo, author of \u003ci\u003eThe January Children\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e“\u003ci\u003eWinged Witnesses\u003c\/i\u003e shimmers with an abundance of interiority and grace. With imagination and deep regard, Chisom Okafor reminds us that we are the kin of each other, flowers, song, stars. And so: a flower sprouts in the head and the voice of a boy is ‘an undecipherable murmur of expelled rain.’ Our bodies written with each other. Each of us ‘a story hidden within a story.’”—Aracelis Girmay, author of \u003ci\u003ethe black maria\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eKingdom Animalia\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eThe voices in these poems have witnessed the microhistories of the atypical body, the unusual body, the enjambed body, the chronically ill body trying to navigate space and time, love and displacement. The poems are a forcefield for questions that are at once intense and gripping: when we embody life through disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent body-minds, how do we grapple with love, time, and consciousness? How does the chronically ill body navigate the monstrosities of trauma and displacement? The poems not only play around the idea of body-minds but also center on embodiment as touchstones of description. They are alive to history and the way poetry’s memorial practices animate the raw intimacy between the seen and unseen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The people who populate Chisom Okafor’s \u003ci\u003eWinged Witnesses\u003c\/i\u003e are broken by numerous afflictions and darknesses, but there is a common companionship that binds them, as in a loop. Their voices call out in the wild and their jaded feet drag through lonely pathways, where wild birds dust-bathe by the wayside. There is trauma in these poems, but also light and salvation, and everything that comes between.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e Acknowledgments \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e First Witness\u003cbr\u003e Cachexia\u003cbr\u003e Some Places Become Homes by Habit\u003cbr\u003e In Another Life, I Am Twenty-Two, Gifted and Curious\u003cbr\u003e Echo-cardio-gram\u003cbr\u003e Animalcules\u003cbr\u003e Teach Me to Shapeshift\u003cbr\u003e Supersedure\u003cbr\u003e Circumnavigation\u003cbr\u003e On Your Second Visit to the Cardiologist\u003cbr\u003e All I Know about an Enlarged Heart Is How to Carry It\u003cbr\u003ePetrichor\u003cbr\u003e Thunderhead\u003cbr\u003e There Are No Synonyms for \u003ci\u003eCatharsis\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Woodsmoke\u003cbr\u003e On Breaking the News of My Heart Dysfunction, I Knew We Would Never Be the Same\u003cbr\u003e angina decubitus\u003cbr\u003e On Patmos, the Isle of My Departure\u003cbr\u003e In Light of Saint John’s Testimony as Recorded in the Morning Light on the Water Lands of Patmos\u003cbr\u003e Stranglehold\u003cbr\u003e As Heraclitus Steps into Five Cowries Creek the Second Time\u003cbr\u003e I Gift You a Miracle of Pills\u003cbr\u003e Synonyms for \u003ci\u003eTachycardia\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Night\u003cbr\u003e Birdhouse\u003cbr\u003e Hunger, Even in the Face of a Foreshadowing\u003cbr\u003e I Reach Out for My Epiphany as though I Were a River Boy Rowing Softly into the Sunset \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e Other Witnesses\u003cbr\u003e Old Coffee Shop\u003cbr\u003e Note to Departure\u003cbr\u003e In the Palms of Night\u003cbr\u003e Unlearning the Principles of Displacement for a Body at Rest\u003cbr\u003e Jaded Feet\u003cbr\u003e Otherwise, I Choose to Die Intestate\u003cbr\u003e A Piercing through the Dark\u003cbr\u003e Medical Histories\u003cbr\u003e Memories Are Traitors, They Blurt Out Time\u003cbr\u003e Child of the Sea\u003cbr\u003e Birthing\u003cbr\u003e Throat Song\u003cbr\u003e Telepathy\u003cbr\u003e Lamb of God\u003cbr\u003e There Is No Haloing Attached to These Bodies\u003cbr\u003e The Voice that Comes with the Winds at Nightfall Is a Traveler’s, Dying inside My Head\u003cbr\u003e Hymn to the Bowstring\u003cbr\u003e In Telephone Conversation with My Father Where He Enquires about My Marriage Plans \u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University of Nebraska Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52676655382808,"sku":"9781496243423","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/winged-witnesses-paperback-softback-9781496243423","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}