GillsGills

Gills is the debut collection of Ayomide Bayowa, the current Poet Laureate of Mississauga and a rising star in Canadian poetry. Born in Lagos, Bayowa found his path to poetry at the University of Ibadan, Oyo. He brings a diasporic sensibility to his writing, which is an intricate meshing of narrative voices, dramatic tellings and hip hop rhythms. These poems interrogate belonging, race, identity and the diasporic struggle with the socio-economic system of debt. They are written for the millions of immigrants trying to keep their head up, trying to uphold skin and breath and bones. They are poems written to enable people to survive, even under water.