Inua Ellams Writes 'A Foul Wind' at the Museum
The British–Nigerian poet composed the poem during his residency
Award-winning poet, playwright and performer Inua Ellams spent the first week of December in residence with us. Over the course of the week he performed his show Search Party, ran a creative writing workshop for our students, and produced a new work.
‘A Foul Wind' was inspired by the carved tusk Aken'ni Elao, looted in 1897 by British forced and currently on show in our exhibition "Benin Dues."
The exhibition has become the setting for a new artistic response to pieces from the Benin Kingdom. In the video, Inua Ellams recites his new poem — a goosebumps moment.
A Foul Wind
By Inua Ellams, December 2025
And beneath
the future king / lies the first
of the pair of little leopards here
sprawled out / suppliant / and
sending its strength up / beside
the numinous native doctor / plugged
as he is / to both the living land
and the deserts of the dead
which the royal guard / with his sword
and spear drawn / knows only
too well / Ever ready to guard
the souls of kings / not the one
just above / who is strong and dressed
for battle / but the king he’d failed
the one sat below / legs splayed
and flat as a mudfish
splat / across the python’s
precious / precious path
As if in warning / the three warriors
shake their terrible rattles / the shards
of glass and seeds inside / hissing
the python’s sibilant sensuous song
but the crocodile / who has heard
enough of this shit / longs
for the silence of water
Though all know they are
ghosts / first sketched / then
carefully etched into ivory / they are
squabbling still / as spirits do
when shepherding the sun towards
its shine / and each leaf’s reach towards
the skies / Only the lonely and loyal
dog who was / and is / never long
for any world / knows what’s coming
can sniff / the split skin
and cracked wood / the flecks
of flaming flesh / the melting
men / now soft sparks
and soot / floating in the black
and flowing breeze
© 2025, Inua Ellams. All rights reserved; no use without permission.
Video: Amir Mommartz, 2025.
Team Ethnographic Museum UZH