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2023 Academy of American Poets Prize

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Of

by Diepreye

after A. Van Jordan Of. prep. 1. To indicate the materials or items constituting a thing: As in, six days after my birth, as she sorted the sprawl of coal and lath strips into polypropylene sacks inside her cooking shed built of mud and palm fronds, my mother whistled the hymn, It Is Well with My Soul. Her sister, Ruth, joined in from the corridor where she was weaving a crown of yellow trumpet flowers and watching me sleep under the mosquito net. Cousin Boma’s final call with a list of traditional girl names brought some relief. It was one day away from my naming ceremony. 2. Denoting the source of action with respect to motive or cause: Of necessity, we moved into an uncompleted building when I was eleven months old. Ruth returned to Nana in the village. 3. Because of; on account of: My mother voiced endlessly: No woman needs to be ashamed of being lonely. Nowadays, most women are single mothers anyway, even the ones with husbands in their beds. In the same way, no woman should be proud of or sick of being alone. 4. To demonstrate separation or removal of something from an owner or affected person: Back from an evangelical retreat, supposedly cleansed of womanizing and alcoholism, onion- purple bruise on his chin from his wife’s swift fists, Baba Benji stood beneath our compound’s Neem tree and yelled out to the women present: Girls must be rid of this new equality idea, else they grow up to rob men of dignity! 5. Indicating the origin of a person: Born of the Niger Delta, of the war deity worshippers, of cassava farms, of a long line of palm wine tappers, my father paid his way through to a Master’s degree. He worked as an accountant at the United States Embassy before leaving Nigeria. 6a. In the construction of compound prepositions: Even when it rained, my mother strapped me to her back each school morning and trekked more than one mile outside of our community so I could attend the better nursery school. 6b. In the construction of adjectives: Often I’d yell at my mother: If my daddy were here, I’d be so

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