Manifest Destiny

by Pelumi Olatinpo

America turns 250 in 2026. In MANIFEST DESTINY, Pelumi Olatinpo delivers an essential examination of what we’ve been, what we are, and what we might become.

This isn’t a traditional book. It’s a new form entirely—159 “sonetas” that compress centuries into seconds, each one exactly sixty words. Think of them as diagnostic tools, or prayers, or evidence. Olatinpo’s innovation makes complex history feel like music in your bones.

Olatinpo writes with the authority of someone who has lived the contradictions he interrogates: arriving undocumented at fifteen, becoming a citizen twenty-two years later. This second book after the acclaimed Poeta moves through four sections—from intimate love through historical memory to prophetic witness—each soneta a small revelation.

“All men are created equal, some more equal than others.”

“In Lagos, you damn the bled, or join the dead.”

“I’ve loved you with the darkest and brightest blues / Of every ocean.”

The journey spans continents and centuries, connecting Gaza to Gettysburg, colonial Nigeria to contemporary Chicago. Code-switching between biblical prophecy, constitutional language, and Nigerian Pidgin, Olatinpo reveals patterns we’ve been trained not to see.

Extensive endnotes turn every reference into a teaching moment. The final piece appears on the book’s endpaper—making it impossible to close without confronting the question: who remembers?

For readers of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, Claudia Rankine’s Citizen, and anyone seeking to understand America at this crucial moment.

Essential reading for the 250th anniversary. A book that transcends genre to become necessary equipment for our time.

Genres: Poetry

272 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2025

Reviews

[Courtney N · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 ⭐️

I’ll say it once again, I’m a huge fan of poetry and I read and review collections as often as I can. But this one is different and it was a great surprise.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to have picked up this ebook. A powerful, chill-inducing, educational and emotional collection of Sonetas that take you on a journey to view the world through a perspective that needs to be seen.

Set up in four “books”, with endnotes giving the history about each and every sonata so there is room for understand and learning, this poetry is completely accessible to all readers. IWith hard hitting themes like slavery, modern racism, the war on Gaza, forgotten (or erased) history of minority stories, etc, I think this read is essential (though very heavy).

This poetry is unlike a lot of modern poetry I’ve read recently. It feels old and practiced yet fresh and brand new. It’s the kind of writing elicits visceral emotions, captures your attention and leaves you think long after. Not only the poetry itself but the endnotes and all that those contain were so well researched and thought out.

This came at the perfect time in my life, a time where it felt like all my shame, anger and pain I feel towards the current political climate felt like it was falling into a void. This validated, showed me beyond my own sight, and made me think.

I highly recommend this collection!

[Azanta (azantareads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

should be required reading tbh

[Netanella · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, thanks to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for the advance read. It was surely appreciated. I was attracted to the book by its title (I love history!) and book cover.

So poetry is not my thing, but this collection of thematic sonnets, or sonetas, is my thing. Nigerian-American poet Olatinpo uses his sonetas to fuse traditional Western sonnets and West African rhythms and cadences to create a new beat to these poems. And the poems hit hard - they are direct and brutal and cut deep, at times deeply rooted in history, and at other times deeply rooted in the personal or the sacred. I especially appreciated that after the thematic sections, the author provides narrative footnotes for the various ideas, peoples, places, events that he references. I went down a few rabbit holes, such as the Church Committee Investigations into the US sanctioned killing of Congolese leader Lamumba in the 1960s, and recalled many a frustrating episode from the more recent past, such as the Clarence-Thomas and Anita Hill hearings. The current genocide of Palestinians by Israel, supported by the U.S., makes for harrowing poetry. Interwoven between the collection's parts are color illustrations, immediate and bold in their reds and blacks.

This is not a poetry collection I will forget. And, I hope, this is a poet that has a lot more to say.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought provoking and meant to savor and consider.
Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this collection. Multiple highlights will stick with me. The messages to consider, to be aware and to act are numerous.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subject matter was very thought-provoking. Lots of Bible references and current events.

But I couldn’t get into the poem style, which is a poem form the author invented. It felt forced sometimes, though maybe I just don’t get it.

Thank you to NetGalley and to TogetherInWitness for an eARC of this book! This is my honest review.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard for me to "rate" poetry, as it's not a medium that I visit often or have much expertise in. My usually barometer is "did you understand what this poem is saying?" In the past, I haven't understood poetry unless the language was more accessible to me (e.g. Langston Hughes's poems about poverty, identity, love, etc.). This collection of poetry is very accessible. Even if you don't understand something, there are end notes that will give you more context and explain what the author is trying to convey with their work.

There are a lot of Christian biblical references laced throughout this work. That may be a turn off for some people, but it actually didn't bother me. It didn't come off as pretentious. Instead, it references many events in the bible juxtaposed with current events. It questions God sometimes in how "He" seems to just allow terrible things to happen, but then in the future there is hindsight. I don't know what the hindsight will be to the atrocities we witness today (soneta 369)...but I guess we will see.

Among my favorites are Soneta 386 that references Maya Angelou's statement "God put the rainbow in the clouds, not just in the sky, so that each one of us in the dreariest and most dreaded moments can see a possibility of hope"; Soneta 400 deals with having conflicting voices that make it difficult to know when to yield and when to resist; Soneta 378 that basically restates "there's nothing new under the sun" from the bible and the warning that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.; Soneta 384 about black fatigue/white exhaustion "I'm sorry I bothered you with my troubles, clobbered you with my endless foibles. Faulted you like you were the riddle to my struggles..."

There's a couple of non-political Sonetas that I also enjoyed: Soneta 398 "I've loved you with the darkest and brightest blues of every ocean. Shall love you still, if you choose..."; Soneta 399 "I return to you like a child lost and in need of love. Not that I've found a world without its flaws, summer without its frost..."; Soneta 391 "April is the truest month, the fullest song from Nature's lungs, springing far and wide with psalmic tongue..." a contrast to "April is the cruelest month..." from another famous poem...

I highlighted whole poems while reading with my kindle. There are too many to name. I enjoyed reading this. I want to pick up a physical copy so that I can spend a bit more time with these poems and do some annotation.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This poetry collection is one that I am very grateful to have read. There are so many insightful and raw narratives being explored in such a thoughtful way. I always enjoy getting to dive into poetry from time to time and this collection really wove through several pressing issues and spoke to persistent systemic issues and tackled so much of the political climate in a really innovative way.
Pelumi Olatinpo created a new style of poem, Sonetas, which blends together the familiar sonnet with African oral traditions. These are 6 line poems where each line is 10 words or less. It is quite impressive what Olatinpo is able to accomplish within that framework and it only serves to speak to the power of words.
These poems tackle the genocide in Gaza, slavery and its lasting impact, systemic oppression and so much more.
This collection is divided into four "books" and one thing that really stood out to me was the fact that each book has endnotes that dive deeper into the historical and political contexts. These endnotes help contextualize the sonetas when needed and provide helpful insights to the poems and the greater message.

I really applaud Olatinpo's innovation and willingness to speak up about these issues and to use this new, creative outlet to express himself, raise awareness, and help advocate for change and improvements. The content is heavy and important, but I also found the sonetas to be very accessible and something that I think could easily be consumed by a wide range of readers. And, especially given the added details in the endnotes, I think this is something that many could read and learn from.

Thanks to Together in Witness (@ togetherinwitness on IG) and NetGalley for providing me with a digital review copy of this story in exchange for an honest review.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reviewing and rating this was difficult. Poetry is such a personal journey, not only to the poet but the reader as well. The subject matter of these poems sat heavy in my soul. The breadth of topics the poet covered were remarkable. The book is broken into 4 sections: First Light, Testament, Sanctuary and The Return. There are numerous biblical undertones throughout, which depending on an individuals beliefs, it could detach them some from the overall message.
The poet created a new type of poem. The soneta. A soneta is a 6 line poem that can be no more than 10 words per line and the poet determines the rhyme scheme. The poetry is meant to be lyrical in nature and I did read many of these poems aloud. Because of the structure, or lack there of, I found it difficult at times to follow along with some poems. Others resonated loud and clear and were felt in my bones. A few that I particularly enjoyed were Sonetas 263, 266, 272, 277, 281, 313, 350. There were also poems that felt lyrical in nature until I would hit a single word and it would immediately create a jarring interruption in the flow. Given the fairly loose parameters of what is considered a soneta, it was difficult at times to adapt to the sentence structure being out of order or incomplete.
For people unfamiliar with the topics presented in the poems, the poet provides wonderful end notes for each poem to provide context and information.
The art in the book is also absolutely stunning and should not be overlooked.
While the topics ran parallel to my own interests and social beliefs, the style made it difficult for me to remain engaged.
While not for me, this may be for others, thus rating seems unfair. As a result I place myself squarely middle of the road.

[Luis A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Manifest Destiny" is an unique book of poems. The book starts with an "Invocation," and it is a meaningful one. The language has merit as poetic, and the rhyme-scheme is not bad at all. The content is never trivial and it gives an interesting read. What comes after it is poetry that uses a form called a "soneta' created by the author.
The book is divided into four books. The first book is titled "Songs of Love." Here are poems where love is shown with passion and it is full of care and loving feelings. I like "Sonata 247" much, but I could have easily chosen another poem. They all are equally powerful when it comes to displaying love and love sentiment.
"Hidden Waters" has poems about childhood, comparing nuns in a nunnery to the situation of a person, about freedom and success; all written well and compact in meaning, the mark of this collection of poems.
Another part of this book, "Rising Voice" touches on the Black situation and its history in America, problems of race, and circumstances of living in the United States through its history for some people such as the blacks, and the Indians. In general, the book talks about love, freedom, success, race, crime, people... all of this more or less connected to the history of the United States where all, according to the book, have not been equal even though this country is called the land of the free and the Land of opportunity, but as the books shows this has not always been the case for some. This is a book with a naked portray of America, some of its history that discuses various situations with passion and openness.

[K.C. Norton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this collection through Booktrovert… thank you to the publisher.

This is a little hard for me to rate, because I did sometimes find that the style came before the substance. The poems are written in a very particular format, and at times the poet would drop a word here or there to meet the form constraints. As a result, there would sometimes be a clunky line, especially at the very end of the stanza, which made things feel a little off whenever that happened.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the majority of these poems. At the beginning, I didn’t particularly care for the form, but as I read, I started to appreciate the poet’s voice more. There were a lot of notes throughout the collection, which is broken up into four main segments, that helped explain references within each poem. Some of these were obvious to me, given my background in poetry, while others were regional or referred to a specific speech or document that the poet wanted to respond to. I suspect there will be people for whom the opposite is true, where the cultural references will be more obvious than the poetic ones, so I appreciated how thorough the notes were so that they could be useful for a broad audience.

Overall, I think this collection will be very accessible to people who don’t read a lot of poetry, but are socially conscious. I know a lot of people are intimidated by poetry, but I think this balanced wordplay with clarity in a very effective way.

Thank you again to the publisher, they seem cool based on their mission statement. 🙂

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Manifest Destiny is a book of poetry, all written in a form the author created in his first work called the sonnetta. It blends traditional poetic structure with the lyrical rhythms of African oral traditions, making the poems both musical and deeply engaging.

The collection covers a wide range of topics—racism, the war in Gaza, politics in the United States, Black freedom and history, global struggles, and, woven throughout, many poems about love. I found the poems both powerful and accessible. If you’re new to poetry, this would be a great starting point—the rhythm practically invites you to read aloud, and it almost feels like singing. If you’re already familiar with poetry, there’s plenty of depth here, as the conciseness of the form still carries great meaning.

The book is thoughtfully organized, with an introduction explaining the sonnetta, and each section is followed by end notes. I really appreciated those notes, since they gave helpful context and deepened my understanding of the poems.

Overall, this is a rich, rewarding collection that I highly recommend to anyone interested in poetry—whether you’re brand new to it or a longtime reader.

[Addy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Manifest Destiny is an unflinching and critical look at America's history through a black lens that is evocative and transcendent.

Olatinpo is steadily becoming one of my favorite poets. I find his poetry to be accessible, discarding flowery prose for the "soneta" that is direct and flows with a strong rhythmic beat. Split into four parts, Manifest Destiny, embarks on 250 years of history in a matter of 1 minute sonetas that offers a deeply holistic introspective into colonization, black liberation, white supremacy, and abolition.

Due to its well researched historical references, Manifest Destiny will be a great addition to our collective literary study. We will read Olatinpo's work for decades to come, finding new and old meaning to his words that are a mirror to our country's existence, and all the scorching truths that come with it.

If there is only one poetry book you read this year, let it be this one.

[Jifu · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Note: I received an advanced reader copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley)

Normally I would not consider myself a major poetry fan. However, Manifest Destiny only needed a few pages before it completely turned me. Armed with his soneta format and his chosen range of themes, Pelumi Olatinpo is both proudly unapologetic and absolutely ruthless here. Each individual poem packs its own fierce punch, and usually quite unequivocally. However, in case of potential confusion that may blunt their meaning, Olatinpo includes endnotes at the end of each chapter, providing all the helpful context one may need.

I saw this definitely an absolute must-read that fits in almost painfully perfectly with these times, and a collection that I most definitely plan on recommending widely.

[EmJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not usually a poetry person so I'm not sure my review can do this book justice. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The subject matter of the poems was easy to understand but the end notes added substantial depth and insight into the author's thoughts. The social justice themes are very strongly woven throughout the book. I think it can bring further awareness to issues and also prompt introspection on the part of the reader. I also thoroughly enjoyed his interpretation of Scripture and how he tied it to current social justice issues. Thank you to the author and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Tameeka · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember learning about Pelumi Olatinpo and his new form of poetry known as the soneta a few years ago. It was wonderful to experience Olatinpo's work in his newest publication. These sonetas speak to the state of today's world. It brings a different language to the suffering. It does not hold back from calling out apathy, inequities, and ignorance. The endnotes for each book of poetry offers further insight into Olatinpo's process. I really appreciated that. I don't remember reading a book of poetry where we get to see the why behind every poem. Wonderful book. Thanks to Netgalley for the arc.

[Brittany]

I actually think this would be a great introduction to someone who finds poetry intimidating or "not for them." The soneta is accessible, yet impactful and powerful, on topics like immigration and raicsm.

I do wish he did not call it "the war in Gaza" or the "Israel-Palestine conflict" because I do think it's important to be clear that it is a targeted genocide. However, I do think he weaves in themes of justice and freedom, and recognizes the plight of the Palestinians.

With any collection of poetry, some called out to me more than others, but I really enjoyed reading this, and hope that Olatinpo finds his readership <3

[LeeAnn · Rating 5 out of 5]

If poetry could teach American history, it would be found in these pages.

Olatinpo has such a way with words. The lines here can be both cutting and soothing. And the author provides notes for many of the poems, offering insight beyond the reader's pov.

If you want to unlearn what you have learned, this is the poetry collection you need.

”Poetry ought to be read, silently hugged and caressed,
Poetry ought to be shared, virulently spread and dispersed,
Poetry ought to be feared, discreetly heard and confessed."

[Gary L Rau · Rating 5 out of 5]

History as poetry.

An unusual perspective provides insight into the history of the USA. Endnotes for each section provide historical references for those not family with them.

What I liked was the emotional distance provided by the poems.

The endnotes were jarring, as they forced me to look face to face into the author's point of view.

Highly recommended for anyone seeking to broaden their perspective of American history.

[Erin Wyman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was blown away by the skills of the poet.
While I don’t align with all topics discussed, I commend the artist for speaking his truth and most importantly for the resources placed at the end of each section, explaining the multiple references within the sonetas. This may be the smartest book I read in 2025. And I will read it again.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first time reading a work by Pelumi Olatinpo. I found the second section, Testaments, to be the most powerful and moving in the book. Olatinpo uses his own poetic form, the "soneta," to provide social commentary on race relations, his experiences as a Black man in America, and other aspects of contemporary life.

At the end of each section, Olatinpo provides explanations and sources to help readers fully appreciate the meaning behind his lines. At times, I found that the descriptions took away from my reading of the soneta--the poetry is sparse and concise, inviting the reader to take and make meaning, until the poet comes along and provides the precise lesson that the reader was intended to take away.

There are moments of brilliance in this work, in particular turns of phrase, imagery, and poems. Olatinpo will be one to watch.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of Manifest Destiny in exchange for this review.

[Kate Hergott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not a huge poetry reader, but I saw an excerpt for Manifest Destiny and I was blown away. This is an achingly beautiful collection of illuminating verses, and I loved that the footnotes could give context to some of the stories.

[Colleen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some of the "art" looks ai

[Jae (spoiler free reviews) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I often find it hard to review poetry, but I truly loved this collection. Rather than trying to review this book (because I don’t think I could do it justice), I want to simply share a glimpse of what it offers.

Pelumi Olatinpo created the soneta, a six-line poem with no more than ten words per line, and used the form to powerful effect.

Manifest Destiny is divided into four sections: First Light, Testament, The Reckoning, and The Return. Each section includes endnotes that provide historical, literary, and political context, which added just as much value to my reading experience as the poems themselves.

This collection is both intellectually engaging and emotionally resonant, and I believe it will connect with a wide range of readers, even those who don’t usually pick up poetry.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review a DRC. This book is available now.