by Angel Nduka Nwosu
Although African literature is not lacking in books and essays that discuss loss, grief, and the pain of standing in the gap, it must be said that the concept of grief tends to be glossed over or not spoken about in an in-depth manner.
Furthermore, grief as it concerns women and children of the deceased is usually discussed through the lens of widowhood and the effects of losing a child in a community that places a mother’s human worth in how many children she has.
In Nigerian poetry and specifically in Nigerian poetry written by women, the concept of grief and loss is spoken about both in terms of standing in the gap and in healing.
Titilope Sonuga’s collection This Is How We Disappear explored the confusion that can come with losing a child and not even knowing if one’s daughter or child is dead or missing.
However, hardly in Nigerian poetry do we see a poetry collection by a woman that is solely dedicated to unraveling what grief does to women and children. And especially discussing the way women navigate the grief of parents in a way that does not conform to the expectations that there must be a forced moving on after a while.
This singular scenario is the first groundbreaking motif in Wendy Okeke’s poetry collection titled Grief’s First Kiss Is An Avalanche, which was published in 2025 and focuses on themes like loss, sexuality, grief and the ways in which family ties can snap into pieces in the face of pain.
In reading Okeke’s collection, one gets the sense that the poems in it are a lighthouse for those who have lost people to the cold and skillful hands of death.
The first poem addresses the loss of the author and sets the tone for the rest of the collection.
There is a raw sense of despair in the poem that is both a throwback and a grounding into the present of the fact that everyone will face grief, and so must be prepared to deal with how loss often leaves one too fractured to ever return to what was.
In discussing grief and loss, Ibi Mfoniso Kontein, a playwright and feminist, has often said that one never gets over the pain of the loss and instead must grapple with people around them who are waiting anxiously for them to go back to their past behaviour. Instead, to her, your life is torn into the shreds of before loss and after loss.
In her collection, Okeke perfectly encapsulates the truth espoused by Ibi Kontein. In multiple poems in the collection, there is a narration of how families have to face those who expect them to hold a feast for them even if the members of the family are yet to come to terms with the reality that they have indeed been left without a father.
Although the collection focuses on grief, it explores how sexuality can be used as a coping mechanism and even a form of healing from the reality that the body of someone you care about has been conquered by death.
Okeke presents the act of sexual intercourse as not only a site of resisting the demons that come with grief, but also as an act where vulnerability can be nurtured in order to face the trauma that comes with loss in a manner that is at once tender and nostalgic.
The Ghanaian-British writer Jessica George, discussed in her debut novel Maame the effect of grief, loss and the lack of spaces to be vulnerable as it concerns first daughters.
One thing that is interesting about feminist-leaning literature is how multiple genres can mirror similar themes, even if the writers are from different ethnicities.
In comparing and contrasting George’s Maame and Okeke’s Grief’s First Kiss Is An Avalanche, there is the centering of the role of grief and loss in the lives of daughters who are expected to hold the family together and are often not appreciated for their efforts.
What stands out in this collection is the juxtaposition of tenderness and anguish in a tone that is fiercely vulnerable. Overall, Wendy Okeke’s Grief’s First Kiss Is An Avalanche is one that is timely because it returns the reader to the truth that though it seems life has no meaning, we owe it to ourselves to create pockets of joy.
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Wendy Okeke is a writer, poet, and creative facilitator exploring identity, grief, belonging, and transformation. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Salford, Manchester. Her work has appeared in Poetry Column Nigeria, Northern School of Writing Journal, Anti-Misogyny Club Journal, and Magpies Magazine. She has performed on Oroko Radio, BBC, and BlackCountry Extra. Blending introspection with cultural commentary, her poetry explores fragility and resilience. Wendy is building Motherland Collective, a community for diaspora creatives, fostering innovative and inclusive artistic dialogue.
