Your debut creative work in 2001 was entitled Mairogo: A Buffoon’s Poetic Journey around Northern Nigeria, and it is a work built on a journey motif. Is there any advantage that comes with the persona as a minstrel, going by your stylistic recourse?
The
recourse to “minstrelsy” as a stylistic trope was what made the thematic
preoccupation of the work to be unassailable. The wandering or
journeying minstrel, we all know in our study of oral literature and
even in our everyday encounter with that kind of poet persona, has a
license to be irreverent, to say the “unsayable” without any untoward
occurrence to his person. Those who listen to him expect him to be
truthful in his words and to his art. He is no court poet and therefore
the listeners brace up for anything he is coming up with and they will
be disappointed if he or she does not veer off the path of the norm or
convention. The highly critical overviews of Northern Nigeria i espouse
in that work can only be carried in that form which enabled me to be
humorous, to coat weighty statements with the liberalizing veneer of
madness which frees the poet-persona and the real poet behind the façade
of fiction from being taken too seriously to the point of being
“fatwaed” by the “offended” readers. In Hausa language, there is a
saying that the same dance someone danced and he is sprayed money is one
another will dance and get beaten. This tells us that the dance is not
the issue, but who is dancing it, the way it is danced, at what
particular time and before which audience. My experiment in that work,
which is based on an age long but fast disappearing tradition of the
yakamanchi(itinerant Hausa minstrels), worked as the book has not
stopped receiving commendation and critical attention.
Your second poetry collection, Abuja Nunyi' (2008), was product of the British Council's Crossing Borders project of 2006. Like Vatsa, you came to be addressed as a poet of the city. Are you flattered by this comparison?
Vatsa was a great patriot, soldier and poet and I should ordinarily be flattered if compared with him. He wrote about Abuja when the place was almost virginal, when it was a kind of resort town to the power wielders of Nigeria. Vatsa saw the promise in Abuja and wrote visionary poetry about the city and that was why he was called the poet laureate of Abuja. I like followed in his footsteps and wrote about the same place at a different time, with my own style and fervor about the many dimensions to the city. So if you read Vatsa and later read me and try to find some commonalities to our poetic preoccupation on Abuja, you will not be doing something far-fetched.
Abuja, in the poems in this collection, is presented in variegated complexions. What is it about Abuja that lends itself to poetic exploration?
Every place on the surface of the earth can be explored poetically. A place as a temporal space has no ascription to it, nor does it come with a label or name attached to it until poets, explorers and people of imagination begin to colour and extend it with their fecund visions. I recall Femi Osofisan said somewhere about another city Ibadan thus: “Mention a city and it mentions a poet .And if it is in any way significant ,if the city is remembered at all, it is almost always because its name openly or silently summons the memory of a poet”. I have found this statement to be very true of Abuja because the very mention of the city of Abuja today conjures the name of the poet-soldier, Mamman Jiya Vatsa and possibly in the future, a Denja Abdullahi will be part of that ascription and memory. People may have forgotten that Abuja has a long history behind it which predates the quest for a new capital city by Nigeria. People may have forgotten the sacrifices made by the indigenous populations and overlords of Abuja to allow the foundation of a new national capital to be laid in Abuja for Nigeria. People may not reckon with the indigenous brilliance, technology, cultures and the artistic dexterity of the people of Abuja as signposted by that famous potter, Dr Ladi Kwali. People may even take for granted the convivial topography, scenery and the atmospheric condition of Abuja which made it a perfect choice for those who were sent out to hunt for a new capital city. A poet true to his art and who has lived long enough in Abuja will not overlook all these and think the city is not worthy of poetic effusion. That was why Vatsa could not ignore Abuja and that was why largely I too found many things about Abuja to sing about. Today Abuja is Nigeria’s station of power, with variegated power games being played and with people living in the margins, skirting around boundaries of opulence. Can a poet continue to ignore all these?
Grey hair in the play, Death and the King’s Grey Hair, is used symbolically to interrogate traditional African leadership, how does the Junkun traditional concept of power rub on the contemporary experience?
It is all a long forgotten myth or even a lost myth I tried to dramatically extend in the play to contemplate leadership in contemporary times. In various traditional leadership situations, there are checks against tyranny and cushioning structures against even the lifelong monarchical system. In the mythical Jukun past where the monarch is asked to abdicate or commit suicide at the first sprout of grey hair on his head, there are reasons for that; it may be the societal check against the sit-tight syndrome and possible tyranny. It may also be a measure to ensure that those who come into leadership see it as a place of sacrifice and abrogation of the self. Can the expectation of leadership today be different from its ancient conception in traditional Africa? I see no difference here and we have been badly led all these while because our leaders are abjectly unaware of the sacred trust reposed in them by the people and the society. Leaders today see their positions as chances to engage in aggrandizement and their followers urge them on with the refrain “it is our turn to eat.” Recently, a couple of months ago, the final year Theatre and Performing Arts students of ABU Zaria put up the play at their drama village and I was amazed at the contemporary treatment they gave the play. The myth was kept, the poetic language of the play was well carried and the actions resonated meaningfully with the audience. I was particularly thrilled by what I call the “feminization” of the play, where the all pervasive wise men in the original play became wise women and where some other notable male characters in the play were cast as women in the ABU performance. I had no quarrel with their approach because it worked and it aligned with current social realities and the engaging discourse on gender roles as it is perceived to be in the past and even now. I am also well into the performance field as a theorist and practitioner to know that a playwright’s creativity ends with the script and it is the director that extends that creativity on stage and streamline any cloudiness of vision or picture inherent in a script when performance is afoot.
Death and the King’s Grey Hair contains two other plays, both written as an undergrad, Truce with the Devil and Fringe Benefit. Can you lead us into the ideological wedlock that governs these plays?
At the period I went to school between the mid 80s to early 90s, both as an undergrad and a graduate student, there was the intellectually fervency about the fidelity of the artistic vision to societal progressive ideals. We as critical students then were hooked to the sociology of literature as espoused in the theories of Marxist-Leninist literary critics at home and abroad: the Plekhanovs, Terry Eagletons, Biodun Jeyifos, Onafume Onoges and all the other names anybody who studied or taught literature could reel out. We wrote and presented seminar papers espousing our own counter theories to the then great ideological debate between the sociological and formalist approaches to literary study. We were also hooked to the revolutionary praxis of playwrights such as Ngugi Wa Thiongo. Ebraheem Hussein, Tefwik Al Hakeem, Femi Osofisan, Tunde Fatunde, Bode Sowande, Olu Obafemi and many others. The plays you referred to were actually written shortly after I had left school and the ideology behind them was progressive in tune with the time in which I wrote them. We did not believe in art for art’s sake then and I still do not believe in that. The thematic preoccupation of the title play is unabashedly sociological, about curbing the excesses of power. Truce with the Devil is a satire on the later abandonment of the creeds of Marxism by some of its trenchant adherents, a kind of mockery of turncoat revolutionaries in the grip of practical social realities. Fringe Benefits, original written as a radio play, is an expose on the happenings in our ivory towers at a point in history, seen from the eyes of a participant-observer. You may thus say the plays were written in conformity with a prevailing ideology which I believed in and which I think is still relevant, even though it may be found in different hues and strains today.
You are one of the longest serving functionaries of ANA, and rumours have it you are running for the association’s presidency later this year; what else do you have to prove after being around for almost two decades?
My aspiration for ANA Presidency has gone beyond the realm of rumour as I have publicly declared my intent since February this year. Apart from the formality of declaration, it is not unexpected that after my years of service to the Association in various capacities; starting from my establishment of a chapter of the Association in Kebbi State in the early 90s, right through my active involvement in the activities of 3 other chapters of the Association(Kwara, Kogi and the FCT) and my holding of various positions of responsibilities in the National Executive Council of the Association from 2001 till now as the sitting Vice President, that I should be interested in the Presidency. Like I said in my declaration, aspiring to a public office should be predicated on service, commitment and proven dedication. Anyone aspiring to a public office should be properly scrutinized to see what he or she has made of similar responsibilities that may have been handled by such person in the past. I have a track record of service to ANA at the national level first as an ex-officio member(2001-2003),Assistant General Secretary(2003-2005),General Secretary(2005-2009),reverted to the constitutional provisioned office of an ex-officio(2009-2011) and became Vice President(2011 to date). In holding all these offices, I was entrusted with various responsibilities which I executed to the best of my abilities and members of the Association are well aware of that. All these positions were elective positions and I would not have been elected and re-elected, sometimes unopposed into some of them, if I have been found wanting. I have worked closely with four ANA Presidents(Olu Obafemi,Wale Okediran ,Jerry Agada and the incumbent Remi Raji), and you could ask them all to give you a confidential assessment of my service to the Association under their watch. You could also go further and take samples across the broad range of members of the Association to find out what I have made out of the positions I have held in the Association.
Many people may not have bothered to find out what has contributed to my staying power in the Association. First of all, I handle any position of responsibility I find myself from the point of view of tangible service delivery. I will never position myself or angle after an office if I know within myself that I cannot deliver the expected service and much more. Added to that is the fact that in my day job for the past 17 years when I transferred to the public sector, what I do is arts, literary and cultural administration. I have over the years developed core competence and expertise within my job schedule which has been deployed to great effect in my ANA activities. So when others find it hard to grapple with the task of managing their roles within the Association, I do it without breaking a sweat. Managing artistes, working with people in the creative and cultural industries and relating with the creative intelligentsia on worthwhile national and international projects are my daily fare. I affirm in my declaration that arts or literary administration and the activism that goes with it is not a hobby or sidekick for me, it is a career.
With the experience I have in ANA,I am well aware of what it entails to lead the Association to a new era of relevance and vibrancy in the generation of ideas and the doggedness and competence to follow them through to fruition. I also know that ANA Presidency is, to put it in the Yoruba parlance, an elephant’s head, which is not a load for the unprepared, the laggard, the laid back and the man or woman with a provincial or castrated vision. In my present station in life, at the peak of my career in the federal public service, with my demonstrated past service to the Association, I am offering myself again to serve at the highest official level in the Association and I am hopeful of being given that opportunity by ANA’s teeming membership.
You have remained alloyed to your artistic vision as a populist poet, what excites the curiosity of populist bard like you living in a shambolic universe?
A populist poet must always be conscious of not misaligning from the concerns of the general populace. He or she must inject hope regularly into the enterprise of poetry. What excite me are unusual situations and usual situations that could be coloured in novel light. I am also excited about finding a form that could be used to elicit the greatest impact on the reading public. If poetry is not widely read, heard and enjoyed then what would be the aim of populism?
You subscribe, like Niyi Osundare, that poetry should be taken out of the classroom to the marketplace. But, for majority poets in Nigeria, the language of the marketplace is still far from the diction of the day. What role does simple language play in the making of a good poem?
It is very easy for the ordinary reader out there to see poetry today as a genre without purpose, a mere exercise in word play and verbal gymnastic, sheer reveling in meaningless rhythm; and this lead to poetry being seen as something not to be enjoyed but to be studied. On the other hand, people approach a novel with the eagerness to be told a tale. I am yet to see who does not like to be told a good or sweet story. A play is anticipated with bated breath for there is bound to be conflict over issues leading to the eventual dénouement or climax. In essence, there is a ready market for a novel or a play but poetry must struggle to be relevant in order to find a slice of the market. Therefore, springing from my creative ideology, which is popular and people oriented, I make sure the subjects of my poetry are interesting enough to elicit interest from a wider class of people while not sacrificing the basic expectations of what is expected of poetry. I am yet to see a writer who writes without a purpose, though many who write do not have a rather clear purpose, but every one of my poetry collection were written to impact a message or present a perspective to the reader out there beyond the scholars or the literary critics ready to feast on them with their dissecting theories. Anyone who says that profundity of thoughts cannot be conveyed through simple language in poetry does not know what poetry is. I feel gratified that I have achieved my purpose when my readers meet me and commend me for writing poetry in a way that it could be engaged with enjoyment and laughter.
The Talking Drums touches important aspects of life. Is there a conscious reflection of you as a cultural person in this collection of 48 poems, given the overflow of such poems?
I was pushed into writing that book because I felt we were not talking to our children enough in the grand manner necessary to inculcate in them a deep love and understanding for their cultural heritage. In the book, I decided to reduce the various spectacles of our cultural heritages, from the durbar, the boat regatta, the circus, the drumming, the languages and several other entities into poetic singsongs that the young can easily identify with. The intended outcome is to breed children who would exhibit pride in their country and who would be humbled by the diversity available around them. I am happy to relate here that the book has been the staple of many primary and secondary schools in Abuja and beyond when they celebrate their cultural days. I have seen the poems in the book eliciting exciting wall arts, drama, poetic rendition and declamation by pupils and students at many a cultural day fiestas.
The talking drum itself as an instrument seems to echo the message of a return to the past. In what light do you see this?
The talking drum is one of our unique cultural symbols and is also a veritable communication instrument. I do not accept that it echoes the past; it is a living instrument that has been passed from generations to generations. The talking drum has enlivened modern music and would continue to play a role in our music and festivities in years to come. What we need to do is to keep the art of beating the talking drum alive by finding contemporary usages for it, by using it to teach our children and by extending its semiotics to hitherto unrelated aspects of our lives.
A Thousand Years of Thirst is dominated with personal lyrics and there are echoes of social regeneration and justice. What defines your bent for societal redemption in this collection?
A Thousand Years of Thirst, is my poetic historiography, signposting how I started out as a poet, the turbulence of my imagination as a young writer and the many impressions I have tried to make on people and places as I journeyed through life. The idea of the wandering minstrel is very central to the overall thematic pre-occupation of that work. I worked through the poems in that collection with the overriding belief that the true artist would always find his or her place by the people, the poor, the powerless, the hoi polloi, the marginalized, the oppressed and the suppressed. I still do not see any other place other than these as a place for the artist. An artist should never tire of demanding for regeneration and justice where it is lacking, in his or her art.
.You have worked for a long time a cultural facilitator, how does it help your creative side?
I work in an arm of the public service where creativity is encouraged and in a department where we mainly relate with artistes and other people in the creative and cultural industries. So, I can say I am in a familiar and inspiring environment to do my writing. Meanwhile, I have not left literature since I studied it at my undergraduate and postgraduate levels. So you can call those of us who studied the subject at the higher levels of education as first born sons and daughters of the field; and for some of us who developed aspiration for writing, coming from that angle of acquired knowledge made us natural writers of sorts. Though my work in the governmental culture sector has brought me into contact with cultural materials that can be used to garnish creativity, but appropriating all that into actual creative enterprise has been one’s sole labour. You have to self-motivate yourself as a creative person working in the public sector or else you will grow stale and be denuded of originality, going sometimes by the stifling constraints of public sector work.
Written on a flight home from Saudi Arabia, the religious angle of you is profoundly reflected in the Haj Poems, like late Chris Okigbo. How does spirituality conform with your muse?
Poetry lends itself easily to spirituality. It is no happenstance that nearly all extant religious texts of most faiths of the world are rendered in poetic forms. Poetry like religion is a sober, reflective entity, not given to unnecessary verbosity. Poetry is codified, often condensed; possessing a kind of liturgical rhythm and religion is all that too. The vista I explored in that book embraces religious sites, rituals and their association to the faith of millions of people of all races and creeds. The pilgrimage was a humbling religious experience for me that easily conform to the ever present spiritual dimension of my poetic enterprise. I decided to pen some poems to arrest my feelings as I felt them for posterity. In doing that, I was aware I will not be the first or the last to be seized within those kinds of contemplative spiritual moments. That was why in standing on the plain of Mount Arafat, which was the peak of the Hajj rituals itself, with hands of supplication outstretched to the Almighty, I remembered the way Christopher Okigbo stood before Mother Idoto, and the form of the poem I would later write to capture that particular experience came to me like a revelation.
What is cooking in your creative broth now?
I feel like giving creative writing some berth until I do some large body of non-fictive writing. I hope to return to creative writing later on in ways and manners that people will hardly recognize as mine. I intend to shock in form and content with the next creative work from my forge. Beyond that, I have an expansive film script (screen play) I will like to produce or turn into a full length novel. I have sequels to Mairogo which I am toying with and another play I am working on.
Your second poetry collection, Abuja Nunyi' (2008), was product of the British Council's Crossing Borders project of 2006. Like Vatsa, you came to be addressed as a poet of the city. Are you flattered by this comparison?
Vatsa was a great patriot, soldier and poet and I should ordinarily be flattered if compared with him. He wrote about Abuja when the place was almost virginal, when it was a kind of resort town to the power wielders of Nigeria. Vatsa saw the promise in Abuja and wrote visionary poetry about the city and that was why he was called the poet laureate of Abuja. I like followed in his footsteps and wrote about the same place at a different time, with my own style and fervor about the many dimensions to the city. So if you read Vatsa and later read me and try to find some commonalities to our poetic preoccupation on Abuja, you will not be doing something far-fetched.
Abuja, in the poems in this collection, is presented in variegated complexions. What is it about Abuja that lends itself to poetic exploration?
Every place on the surface of the earth can be explored poetically. A place as a temporal space has no ascription to it, nor does it come with a label or name attached to it until poets, explorers and people of imagination begin to colour and extend it with their fecund visions. I recall Femi Osofisan said somewhere about another city Ibadan thus: “Mention a city and it mentions a poet .And if it is in any way significant ,if the city is remembered at all, it is almost always because its name openly or silently summons the memory of a poet”. I have found this statement to be very true of Abuja because the very mention of the city of Abuja today conjures the name of the poet-soldier, Mamman Jiya Vatsa and possibly in the future, a Denja Abdullahi will be part of that ascription and memory. People may have forgotten that Abuja has a long history behind it which predates the quest for a new capital city by Nigeria. People may have forgotten the sacrifices made by the indigenous populations and overlords of Abuja to allow the foundation of a new national capital to be laid in Abuja for Nigeria. People may not reckon with the indigenous brilliance, technology, cultures and the artistic dexterity of the people of Abuja as signposted by that famous potter, Dr Ladi Kwali. People may even take for granted the convivial topography, scenery and the atmospheric condition of Abuja which made it a perfect choice for those who were sent out to hunt for a new capital city. A poet true to his art and who has lived long enough in Abuja will not overlook all these and think the city is not worthy of poetic effusion. That was why Vatsa could not ignore Abuja and that was why largely I too found many things about Abuja to sing about. Today Abuja is Nigeria’s station of power, with variegated power games being played and with people living in the margins, skirting around boundaries of opulence. Can a poet continue to ignore all these?
Grey hair in the play, Death and the King’s Grey Hair, is used symbolically to interrogate traditional African leadership, how does the Junkun traditional concept of power rub on the contemporary experience?
It is all a long forgotten myth or even a lost myth I tried to dramatically extend in the play to contemplate leadership in contemporary times. In various traditional leadership situations, there are checks against tyranny and cushioning structures against even the lifelong monarchical system. In the mythical Jukun past where the monarch is asked to abdicate or commit suicide at the first sprout of grey hair on his head, there are reasons for that; it may be the societal check against the sit-tight syndrome and possible tyranny. It may also be a measure to ensure that those who come into leadership see it as a place of sacrifice and abrogation of the self. Can the expectation of leadership today be different from its ancient conception in traditional Africa? I see no difference here and we have been badly led all these while because our leaders are abjectly unaware of the sacred trust reposed in them by the people and the society. Leaders today see their positions as chances to engage in aggrandizement and their followers urge them on with the refrain “it is our turn to eat.” Recently, a couple of months ago, the final year Theatre and Performing Arts students of ABU Zaria put up the play at their drama village and I was amazed at the contemporary treatment they gave the play. The myth was kept, the poetic language of the play was well carried and the actions resonated meaningfully with the audience. I was particularly thrilled by what I call the “feminization” of the play, where the all pervasive wise men in the original play became wise women and where some other notable male characters in the play were cast as women in the ABU performance. I had no quarrel with their approach because it worked and it aligned with current social realities and the engaging discourse on gender roles as it is perceived to be in the past and even now. I am also well into the performance field as a theorist and practitioner to know that a playwright’s creativity ends with the script and it is the director that extends that creativity on stage and streamline any cloudiness of vision or picture inherent in a script when performance is afoot.
Death and the King’s Grey Hair contains two other plays, both written as an undergrad, Truce with the Devil and Fringe Benefit. Can you lead us into the ideological wedlock that governs these plays?
At the period I went to school between the mid 80s to early 90s, both as an undergrad and a graduate student, there was the intellectually fervency about the fidelity of the artistic vision to societal progressive ideals. We as critical students then were hooked to the sociology of literature as espoused in the theories of Marxist-Leninist literary critics at home and abroad: the Plekhanovs, Terry Eagletons, Biodun Jeyifos, Onafume Onoges and all the other names anybody who studied or taught literature could reel out. We wrote and presented seminar papers espousing our own counter theories to the then great ideological debate between the sociological and formalist approaches to literary study. We were also hooked to the revolutionary praxis of playwrights such as Ngugi Wa Thiongo. Ebraheem Hussein, Tefwik Al Hakeem, Femi Osofisan, Tunde Fatunde, Bode Sowande, Olu Obafemi and many others. The plays you referred to were actually written shortly after I had left school and the ideology behind them was progressive in tune with the time in which I wrote them. We did not believe in art for art’s sake then and I still do not believe in that. The thematic preoccupation of the title play is unabashedly sociological, about curbing the excesses of power. Truce with the Devil is a satire on the later abandonment of the creeds of Marxism by some of its trenchant adherents, a kind of mockery of turncoat revolutionaries in the grip of practical social realities. Fringe Benefits, original written as a radio play, is an expose on the happenings in our ivory towers at a point in history, seen from the eyes of a participant-observer. You may thus say the plays were written in conformity with a prevailing ideology which I believed in and which I think is still relevant, even though it may be found in different hues and strains today.
You are one of the longest serving functionaries of ANA, and rumours have it you are running for the association’s presidency later this year; what else do you have to prove after being around for almost two decades?
My aspiration for ANA Presidency has gone beyond the realm of rumour as I have publicly declared my intent since February this year. Apart from the formality of declaration, it is not unexpected that after my years of service to the Association in various capacities; starting from my establishment of a chapter of the Association in Kebbi State in the early 90s, right through my active involvement in the activities of 3 other chapters of the Association(Kwara, Kogi and the FCT) and my holding of various positions of responsibilities in the National Executive Council of the Association from 2001 till now as the sitting Vice President, that I should be interested in the Presidency. Like I said in my declaration, aspiring to a public office should be predicated on service, commitment and proven dedication. Anyone aspiring to a public office should be properly scrutinized to see what he or she has made of similar responsibilities that may have been handled by such person in the past. I have a track record of service to ANA at the national level first as an ex-officio member(2001-2003),Assistant General Secretary(2003-2005),General Secretary(2005-2009),reverted to the constitutional provisioned office of an ex-officio(2009-2011) and became Vice President(2011 to date). In holding all these offices, I was entrusted with various responsibilities which I executed to the best of my abilities and members of the Association are well aware of that. All these positions were elective positions and I would not have been elected and re-elected, sometimes unopposed into some of them, if I have been found wanting. I have worked closely with four ANA Presidents(Olu Obafemi,Wale Okediran ,Jerry Agada and the incumbent Remi Raji), and you could ask them all to give you a confidential assessment of my service to the Association under their watch. You could also go further and take samples across the broad range of members of the Association to find out what I have made out of the positions I have held in the Association.
Many people may not have bothered to find out what has contributed to my staying power in the Association. First of all, I handle any position of responsibility I find myself from the point of view of tangible service delivery. I will never position myself or angle after an office if I know within myself that I cannot deliver the expected service and much more. Added to that is the fact that in my day job for the past 17 years when I transferred to the public sector, what I do is arts, literary and cultural administration. I have over the years developed core competence and expertise within my job schedule which has been deployed to great effect in my ANA activities. So when others find it hard to grapple with the task of managing their roles within the Association, I do it without breaking a sweat. Managing artistes, working with people in the creative and cultural industries and relating with the creative intelligentsia on worthwhile national and international projects are my daily fare. I affirm in my declaration that arts or literary administration and the activism that goes with it is not a hobby or sidekick for me, it is a career.
With the experience I have in ANA,I am well aware of what it entails to lead the Association to a new era of relevance and vibrancy in the generation of ideas and the doggedness and competence to follow them through to fruition. I also know that ANA Presidency is, to put it in the Yoruba parlance, an elephant’s head, which is not a load for the unprepared, the laggard, the laid back and the man or woman with a provincial or castrated vision. In my present station in life, at the peak of my career in the federal public service, with my demonstrated past service to the Association, I am offering myself again to serve at the highest official level in the Association and I am hopeful of being given that opportunity by ANA’s teeming membership.
You have remained alloyed to your artistic vision as a populist poet, what excites the curiosity of populist bard like you living in a shambolic universe?
A populist poet must always be conscious of not misaligning from the concerns of the general populace. He or she must inject hope regularly into the enterprise of poetry. What excite me are unusual situations and usual situations that could be coloured in novel light. I am also excited about finding a form that could be used to elicit the greatest impact on the reading public. If poetry is not widely read, heard and enjoyed then what would be the aim of populism?
You subscribe, like Niyi Osundare, that poetry should be taken out of the classroom to the marketplace. But, for majority poets in Nigeria, the language of the marketplace is still far from the diction of the day. What role does simple language play in the making of a good poem?
It is very easy for the ordinary reader out there to see poetry today as a genre without purpose, a mere exercise in word play and verbal gymnastic, sheer reveling in meaningless rhythm; and this lead to poetry being seen as something not to be enjoyed but to be studied. On the other hand, people approach a novel with the eagerness to be told a tale. I am yet to see who does not like to be told a good or sweet story. A play is anticipated with bated breath for there is bound to be conflict over issues leading to the eventual dénouement or climax. In essence, there is a ready market for a novel or a play but poetry must struggle to be relevant in order to find a slice of the market. Therefore, springing from my creative ideology, which is popular and people oriented, I make sure the subjects of my poetry are interesting enough to elicit interest from a wider class of people while not sacrificing the basic expectations of what is expected of poetry. I am yet to see a writer who writes without a purpose, though many who write do not have a rather clear purpose, but every one of my poetry collection were written to impact a message or present a perspective to the reader out there beyond the scholars or the literary critics ready to feast on them with their dissecting theories. Anyone who says that profundity of thoughts cannot be conveyed through simple language in poetry does not know what poetry is. I feel gratified that I have achieved my purpose when my readers meet me and commend me for writing poetry in a way that it could be engaged with enjoyment and laughter.
The Talking Drums touches important aspects of life. Is there a conscious reflection of you as a cultural person in this collection of 48 poems, given the overflow of such poems?
I was pushed into writing that book because I felt we were not talking to our children enough in the grand manner necessary to inculcate in them a deep love and understanding for their cultural heritage. In the book, I decided to reduce the various spectacles of our cultural heritages, from the durbar, the boat regatta, the circus, the drumming, the languages and several other entities into poetic singsongs that the young can easily identify with. The intended outcome is to breed children who would exhibit pride in their country and who would be humbled by the diversity available around them. I am happy to relate here that the book has been the staple of many primary and secondary schools in Abuja and beyond when they celebrate their cultural days. I have seen the poems in the book eliciting exciting wall arts, drama, poetic rendition and declamation by pupils and students at many a cultural day fiestas.
The talking drum itself as an instrument seems to echo the message of a return to the past. In what light do you see this?
The talking drum is one of our unique cultural symbols and is also a veritable communication instrument. I do not accept that it echoes the past; it is a living instrument that has been passed from generations to generations. The talking drum has enlivened modern music and would continue to play a role in our music and festivities in years to come. What we need to do is to keep the art of beating the talking drum alive by finding contemporary usages for it, by using it to teach our children and by extending its semiotics to hitherto unrelated aspects of our lives.
A Thousand Years of Thirst is dominated with personal lyrics and there are echoes of social regeneration and justice. What defines your bent for societal redemption in this collection?
A Thousand Years of Thirst, is my poetic historiography, signposting how I started out as a poet, the turbulence of my imagination as a young writer and the many impressions I have tried to make on people and places as I journeyed through life. The idea of the wandering minstrel is very central to the overall thematic pre-occupation of that work. I worked through the poems in that collection with the overriding belief that the true artist would always find his or her place by the people, the poor, the powerless, the hoi polloi, the marginalized, the oppressed and the suppressed. I still do not see any other place other than these as a place for the artist. An artist should never tire of demanding for regeneration and justice where it is lacking, in his or her art.
.You have worked for a long time a cultural facilitator, how does it help your creative side?
I work in an arm of the public service where creativity is encouraged and in a department where we mainly relate with artistes and other people in the creative and cultural industries. So, I can say I am in a familiar and inspiring environment to do my writing. Meanwhile, I have not left literature since I studied it at my undergraduate and postgraduate levels. So you can call those of us who studied the subject at the higher levels of education as first born sons and daughters of the field; and for some of us who developed aspiration for writing, coming from that angle of acquired knowledge made us natural writers of sorts. Though my work in the governmental culture sector has brought me into contact with cultural materials that can be used to garnish creativity, but appropriating all that into actual creative enterprise has been one’s sole labour. You have to self-motivate yourself as a creative person working in the public sector or else you will grow stale and be denuded of originality, going sometimes by the stifling constraints of public sector work.
Written on a flight home from Saudi Arabia, the religious angle of you is profoundly reflected in the Haj Poems, like late Chris Okigbo. How does spirituality conform with your muse?
Poetry lends itself easily to spirituality. It is no happenstance that nearly all extant religious texts of most faiths of the world are rendered in poetic forms. Poetry like religion is a sober, reflective entity, not given to unnecessary verbosity. Poetry is codified, often condensed; possessing a kind of liturgical rhythm and religion is all that too. The vista I explored in that book embraces religious sites, rituals and their association to the faith of millions of people of all races and creeds. The pilgrimage was a humbling religious experience for me that easily conform to the ever present spiritual dimension of my poetic enterprise. I decided to pen some poems to arrest my feelings as I felt them for posterity. In doing that, I was aware I will not be the first or the last to be seized within those kinds of contemplative spiritual moments. That was why in standing on the plain of Mount Arafat, which was the peak of the Hajj rituals itself, with hands of supplication outstretched to the Almighty, I remembered the way Christopher Okigbo stood before Mother Idoto, and the form of the poem I would later write to capture that particular experience came to me like a revelation.
What is cooking in your creative broth now?
I feel like giving creative writing some berth until I do some large body of non-fictive writing. I hope to return to creative writing later on in ways and manners that people will hardly recognize as mine. I intend to shock in form and content with the next creative work from my forge. Beyond that, I have an expansive film script (screen play) I will like to produce or turn into a full length novel. I have sequels to Mairogo which I am toying with and another play I am working on.
No comments:
Post a Comment