AYòMIDE BAYOWA

I wrote We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky: The Seductive Promise of Microfinance (Metropolitan/Holt, June 2023) to understand the rise in popularity of small, anti-poverty loans, particularly among policymakers, celebrities, and funders in America and Europe, and the ongoing consequences of those loans for borrowers around the world.

The orange tinted leaf lies lifeless On the floor that birthed it Stem since detached, its corpse blends With the wood surface that bathed it in sunlight Having once reached heights beyond the wind would ever take it, The late maple now lies still It’s a sequence Our stem anchors us and their roots anchors them We live in a constant state of dependency Until the day we reunite with our Providers where we’d all coalesce To nourish those yet to come Every process has its role Yet it is what...