News
Footprints: Parable of the sojourner - Poetry Anthology and Artistic Intervention
emeka okereke
Aug 29, 2025
I began this year with the volition to publish a poetry anthology.
I have been writing poetry since 2008 — a reflexive practice alongside my engagement with photography and imagery. Poetry has always been a place of refuge, wonder, and cryptic unfolding.
I often say: my poems are images I could not make into photographs.
Along the way, a title emerged: Footprints — Parable of the Sojourner.
Rather than publish it as a traditional book, I chose to offer it as a living anthology — using mobile digital technology as a medium for artistic intervention.
If so much of our daily life is shaped through screens and devices, why not carve out a space there for slowness, questioning, and the gift of perception?
Today, I am happy to announce that Footprints — Parable of the Sojourner is available as a mobile app on the iOS App Store for iPhones. The Android version will follow soon — so all Android users, I ask for your patience.
Each sunrise, the app delivers a fresh poem — conceived, written, and presented by the artist, with no algorithms involved. Both the poems and the app itself are artist-designed, together forming a single artwork.
“As the ground shifts beneath our feet—while the cartography of the external world is contested and our inner landscapes are reconfigured from familiar belief systems and sociocultural identities—these poems offer a sanctuary for contemplation, but also a mirror for seeing beyond one’s own image of self and world.”
The Igbo say: Onye ajụjụ anaghị efu ụzọ — one who questions does not miss the way. The questioner is not necessarily seeking definitive answers, but revelations in the myriad forms truth manifests.
This is only the beginning. I invite you to join this journey — to explore and leave footprints, one poem at a time.
I will also be discussing the poems and offering further commentary in my Patreon community. You are welcome to join the community if you wish to walk more closely with the unfolding of Footprints.
All poems and the app design are original works by trans-African multidisciplinary artist Emeka Okereke.
🔗 Link to the App Store for iOS devices
🔗 Link to join the Patreon Community page
For feedback, write to: footprints@emekaokereke.com
Emeka Okereke
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