INDISTINCT CHATTER: Poetic Points of View
By Nia Ihuoma Alexxis
Writerly Press, Lagos, 2026. 144pp.
ISBN: 978-978-68-2365-2
I’ll be honest: I approached this collection warily. Poetry debuts can be precious things—overwrought, self‑conscious, desperate to impress. The collection is also close to home.
But Indistinct Chatter caught me off guard from its very first pages. It opens with a diptych that gives voice to Israel and Palestine, not as abstract political blocs but as wounded, defensive, almost recognisable human speakers. That takes guts and skill. Nia Ihuoma Alexxis has both.
The organising idea is wonderfully simple: every poem is a first‑person monologue, yet the “person” shifts constantly. Sometimes it’s a woman staring at her own body in “Heavy Wait”; sometimes it’s a nation, a parent, a scammer, even the concept of anxiety itself. The effect is like overhearing fragments in a crowded room—overlapping, sometimes contradictory, yet always alive. You never feel
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