Japa Fire — An anthology of poems of African and African Diasporic Migration 
Edited by Ambrose Musiyiwa and Munya R, Civic Leicester, £9.99

Ourselves in Rivers and Oceans 
Edited by Claire Thom, Marc Brimble, John Tessitore and Sarah Jeannine Gawthrop, The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press, £13

POETRY anthologies are a popular way of presenting a theme, and because they involve many poets can also be used, especially by small publishers, to present voices excluded from more mainstream publication. That is true of both the anthologies reviewed here.

Japa Fire is named after a poem by Ayo Ayoola-Amale exploring Nigerian experiences of irregular migration. The publisher, Civic Leicester, has a strong track record of supporting refugee and immigrant experiences, and here presents 63 poems from 20 poets as a cultural adjunct to an official Africa Migration report from the African Union Commission and the International Organisation for Migration. 

The poets tackle a wide range of topics and themes. Efua Boadu imagines the journeys of Okukor, a Benin Bronze cockerel displayed in the University of Cambridge, that was one of the first to be returned to Nigeria. In Color Trials, Mark Kennedy Nsereko speaks in the voice of a “colourful man” in a court hearing about deportation to Uganda, where challenging heterosexual stereotypes can be fatal: “How am I colorful enough to be/ disowned, fired and almost lynched,/ but not colorful enough for asylum?”