To Be Moved, To Be Unmade: The Stirred Issue

Greetings, dear readers, friends and contributors of Akpata Magazine, and welcome to her second issue—The Stirred Issue.

Before anything, I’d like to give my gratitude to our editors, submitters, and you, our dear reader(s), as well. Without you, there will be no Akpata Magazine and even a second issue to read. For that, thank you.

Whenever I think about the creation of art, regardless of its style or medium, I cannot help but see an artist in the likeness of God. And writers are one set of beautiful gods to walk on earth. In fact, writers should be deitified.

There is something divine about creating, about moulding something out of nothing, about breathing life into a work, giving it a soul as well as shaping the intangible. In that Godlike sense, I believe that every artist embeds a piece of themselves into their work, a fragment of soul woven like wool into the fabric of their expression.

I imagine it much like Christ at the Last Supper, raising the chalice and breaking the bread, saying:

“This is my body; this is my blood, given up for you. Take, eat, and drink.”

There is an offering in art that is both sacred and sacrificial. The artist surrenders something intimate—a thought, a wound, a longing, a revelation—so that others may partake. And in that exchange, creation is no longer solitary. It becomes communion. It becomes a fellowship—a thing of relatability.

This, I believe, is what the contributors of the second issue of Akpata Magazine, The Stirred Issue, have done with their works. They, like God, like Christ, have given out pieces of themselves. In their fictions, poetry and nonfiction, they have said to us:

“This is my pain, my experience, my truth—take and feed.”

They have laid their darkness before us and breathed,

“eat it up like light.”

Same with their light, saying,

“eat it up like darkness.”

In this issue, we dive into the vast and tumultuous landscape of human emotions. Here is grief, like a knife’s sting—sharp and lingering. Here is love, unfathomable in its depth, consuming in its breadth. Joy, trauma, confusion—every piece in this anthology holds these, something I’ll term the human curse. Every piece stirs something within, whether it is memory, longing, or revelation.

All the aforementioned, you’ll read in the poems of Pacella Chukwuma-Eke, Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe, Ridwan Fasasi, and other contributing poets, in the fictions of Denoo Edinam Yowo, Nnadi Cynthia, and also in the creative nonfictions too.

And what does it mean to be stirred? To be moved? To be unsettled? This issue seeks to answer these questions, not through explanations, but through experiences. The works within these pages do not simply tell stories—they evoke. They push against the walls we have built around ourselves, demanding to be felt. They call forth memories we thought were buried and emotions we thought we had mastered. They remind us that to live is to feel, to be disrupted, and to be stirred.

As I read through this issue, I am reminded of the paradox that is the human condition—the contradiction of longing for peace while craving movement, of yearning for stillness while aching for change. To be human is to be caught in this tension, to carry both light and shadow, to be filled and emptied all at once. The works in this issue do not shy away from this complexity. Instead, they embrace it.

Again, as I sit with this issue, I find myself returning to the idea of communion. The act of creation is deeply personal, but once shared, it becomes collective. The works in this magazine are not merely artefacts of self-expression; they are bridges. They connect us to the writers, to one another, and to ourselves. They remind us that we are not alone in our joys or in our sorrows, in our clarity or in our confusion. They resonate relatability.

All I can do is hope that you feel something, that you feel the works, that you’re stirred.

Welcome to The Stirred Issue.

Joemario Umana
Editor.