Speaker 1: This is the Poet Speaks, a show all about or.
Speaker 2: Tradition, hip hop and cardboard boxes on the bloc, Reget
Speaker 2: Bandolero so your heavy metal, punk rock and La Junior
Speaker 2: Hyde pop.
Speaker 1: What makes poetry so amazing, so incredible is this absolute
Speaker 1: fascination and ability to change our lives, the old tradition,
Speaker 1: the reason why we speak.
Speaker 3: This is the Poet Speaks.
Speaker 4: Hello everyone, and welcome back to the poet Speaks Podcast,
Speaker 4: the number one spoken word poetry podcast in the world.
Speaker 4: And our next guest is a Nigerian American poet, pilgrim,
Speaker 4: cologist and essays presently living in New York City. He's
Speaker 4: the author of fifteen volumes of poems, of which the
Speaker 4: latest are Bainbridge Island Notebook and Two Umber. His essays
Speaker 4: on music, poetry, morality, politics and travel have appeared in
Speaker 4: various online and print outlets. Everyone a big, warm round
Speaker 4: of applause and welcome to the Poet Speaks Podcast. Luka uch,
Speaker 4: how are you great?
Speaker 5: Feeling great? Feeling good?
Speaker 4: Yes, with this wonderful New York City weather, You're used
Speaker 4: to it. I guess, I guess we're used to it. Well,
Speaker 4: thanks so much for being on our show. Today. We
Speaker 4: really do appreciate you spending time and giving us some
Speaker 4: of your time today. So I guess, I mean I
Speaker 4: have a billion questions for you. Really love your work,
Speaker 4: love what you represent, and love what you've done and
Speaker 4: what you've been doing. But I guess I kind of
Speaker 4: I want to start off my first question you. I mean,
Speaker 4: your journey is everywhere, everything all at once. To me,
Speaker 4: You're literally from Nigeria to Germany to New York City.
Speaker 4: So you've spanned I mean, your career as a poet
Speaker 4: and a writer has spent continents, cultures. I mean, I
Speaker 4: guess you know, from Nigeria, Germany, New York City, those
Speaker 4: are three completely different cultural interfaces. I mean, how those transitions,
Speaker 4: how those transitions in space influenced I think the themes
Speaker 4: you explore in your own personal writing, That's what I
Speaker 4: want to first start off with today.
Speaker 2: I think that I see poetry basically as exploration itself.
Speaker 2: You know, it's something that helps us see the world
Speaker 2: from different perspectives, and it's something that is continually in process,
Speaker 2: So it's just journey. So those physical geographic journeys I had,
Speaker 2: I think they definitely influence my poetry, My poetry itself
Speaker 2: is sort of a pilgrimage. That's why I see myself
Speaker 2: as a pilgrim. I'm being in different spaces in terms
Speaker 2: of culture, geography, ideas, and different kinds of people who
Speaker 2: look different from me and all that. I think definitely
Speaker 2: that in a way they enriched the work because part
Speaker 2: of the way I also see poetry is that I
Speaker 2: see it as something that has to surprise us.
Speaker 5: Poet. We ssh to surprise us.
Speaker 2: Poet weish to challenge the way we see reality and
Speaker 2: the way we live our lives. It's not just something
Speaker 2: you write because you know, you just feel like writing.
Speaker 5: I think it's rather a calling and not a job. Wow,
Speaker 5: that is deep.
Speaker 4: I mean, so what in what ways what made you
Speaker 4: come to that conclusion in all your years? I mean,
Speaker 4: what kind of made you really realize poetry is that
Speaker 4: type of journey? What was it? Was it a moment,
Speaker 4: a pivotal event? What was it that has led you
Speaker 4: to that very deeper meaning of a really niche form
Speaker 4: of art that many people don't consider poetry as something
Speaker 4: that changes reality? What lets you do that?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 2: I think it's simply experience, perhaps, and my inclination and
Speaker 2: temperament right from when I was born in Nigeria, let
Speaker 2: me say my first teny years, you know, during the
Speaker 2: Nigerian Civil War. That war took about four years of
Speaker 2: my life. So to say, I've always seen reality as
Speaker 2: something a little bit questionable. It seems very unstable. It's
Speaker 2: not something I just as Zuume I know, or something
Speaker 2: I zeume I can claim. And part of all that,
Speaker 2: due to my own work, is that it makes the
Speaker 2: work itself an investigative kind of process. You know, I
Speaker 2: find myself investigating not just reality, but esthetics itself. How
Speaker 2: do we keep ourselves open for something to enter, for instance,
Speaker 2: because I feel poetry in its openness not just physically
Speaker 2: but psychically, spiritual, intellectually. So that's part of why the
Speaker 2: anti intellectualism for the time being I just noticed in
Speaker 2: Nigeria actually gives me grief.
Speaker 5: I think any kind.
Speaker 2: Of anti intellectualism, anti ecstaticism, is the kind of tragedy.
Speaker 2: So for me as a person, I feel I'm living
Speaker 2: in my element. I'm being myself when I write poems.
Speaker 2: I don't have actually lots of theories about it, but
Speaker 2: I just feel this is what I'm called. I'm putting
Speaker 2: the planet to do, and I'm just going to keep
Speaker 2: doing it.
Speaker 4: I love that. I love that it's what your call
Speaker 4: to do and you're just going to keep doing it now.
Speaker 4: I love that. I think that's very rare that people
Speaker 4: ever find that type of passion in their lives. I
Speaker 4: think that's very very rare to be able to find.
Speaker 4: I mean, so I guess the question of from that,
Speaker 4: you have to kind of ask what is your Like
Speaker 4: I said, Nigeria, Germany, New York City. I mean, what
Speaker 4: is your favorite favorite spot? What is your favorite environment
Speaker 4: to be in? Out of all those.
Speaker 2: Places, I will say all of them, actually, because without Nigeria,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be here, Psi and Europe itself. I lived
Speaker 2: in Germany and I lived in Holland. Those spaces helped
Speaker 2: grow my art and my artistry, my exposure to different
Speaker 2: ways of writing, different ways of seeing life, different cultures.
Speaker 2: I feel in lots of ways it tough on me
Speaker 2: as an artist and as a creative person. It's let
Speaker 2: me widen out, so to say, to embrace the world
Speaker 2: more than perhaps when I was in Nigeria. You know,
Speaker 2: it told me that actually I'm a citizen of the world.
Speaker 2: I'm a global citizen. I don't just see myself as
Speaker 2: just the Nigerian. I believe that the world belongs to me.
Speaker 2: So all those places I went to, I look at
Speaker 2: the Mosco as word holy spaces. Just part of why
Speaker 2: I call it a progrimage. I meet prigrimagiest of those
Speaker 2: places I made pilgrim. From Nigeria, I went to Germany
Speaker 2: and then went to Holland, and then from there I returned.
Speaker 2: I came to New York to live. But meanwhile from
Speaker 2: New York, I have been other places from here, Romania,
Speaker 2: South Africa, and so it's like the journey continues. So
Speaker 2: for me again, all these places influenced me stylistically, thematically,
Speaker 2: in a visionary way, because it means that I am
Speaker 2: kept busy.
Speaker 5: You know, it keeps me busy.
Speaker 2: There is no time when I'm really bored. There's no
Speaker 2: time when I feel I don't know what to write about.
Speaker 2: You know, there is no drought to my artistry or
Speaker 2: to my work. There is always something to write about,
Speaker 2: you know, particularly when I'm calm enough.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that. And so
Speaker 4: you mentioned that that term, I've actually never heard of
Speaker 4: it before, poet pilgrim. So that's what you call yourself.
Speaker 4: I mean, so tell me how how specifically has that
Speaker 4: shaped your writing? Like you said, you're a citizen of
Speaker 4: the world. Does that bend your viewpoint when you're now
Speaker 4: writing you know something that you feel is such an
Speaker 4: intrinsic part of your soul being a poet, pilgrim, citizen
Speaker 4: of the world as you call it, How was that
Speaker 4: shaped you as a writer?
Speaker 2: Shapes it shaped the walk itself in sense of making
Speaker 2: it open to whatever is available. You know, it's almost
Speaker 2: like magnetic. It attracts the poem attracts what it needs,
Speaker 2: just like different books. For me, any book is an
Speaker 2: occasion to be able to try at least something I
Speaker 2: have not done before, either stylistically or automatically. So it
Speaker 2: is something that I find fruitful and ruition in terms
Speaker 2: of the work that I sold.
Speaker 5: I solve poetry.
Speaker 4: I love that. So kind of moving a bit along.
Speaker 4: So now, I mean, so now you're a citizen of
Speaker 4: New York City, of the world, but now currently you
Speaker 4: are in New York City. So as someone that knows
Speaker 4: New York City very well, New York City is the
Speaker 4: most intense, loud, busy buddy. I mean, you have a
Speaker 4: billion thoughts racing per minute living in a place like that.
Speaker 3: I mean, how how for.
Speaker 4: Someone like you that's so interceptive, you know, you're so
Speaker 4: introspective of the place you are. How does a place
Speaker 4: like the city, especially in these days, you know, this
Speaker 4: time period where in now? I mean, how has that
Speaker 4: the city of New York? I mean, how has that
Speaker 4: infiltrated your work as a writer?
Speaker 2: In fact, I think that again it's in riches the work.
Speaker 2: You know, it brings so much to me to be
Speaker 2: able to put in poet. For instance, if I look
Speaker 2: around me there almost the whole world is in New
Speaker 2: York City. Almost everybody from different different mode column not
Speaker 2: planets now, but you know, turns of different parts of
Speaker 2: the world geographically, you know, the Asians, Europeans, Africans, Latin Americans,
Speaker 2: everybody's practically in New York City. And it seems again
Speaker 2: perhaps that what is happening is that the power, the
Speaker 2: auras of these different individuals do something inspirationally to me,
Speaker 2: because since I arrived New York City in two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, I've never stopped writing. Lots of people say that, oh,
Speaker 2: they come to New York and they feel on that siege.
Speaker 5: I don't know why. I can't explain it.
Speaker 2: But all New York has given me has been inspiration,
Speaker 2: and they challenge to be able to say, you know what, Yes,
Speaker 2: it's very very friend take here, it's busy here. But
Speaker 2: still I'm going to be doing what I'm putting the
Speaker 2: planet to do, which is write poetry, share with people,
Speaker 2: tish when your opportunity arises. Learn because I think that
Speaker 2: a poet is a perpetual student.
Speaker 5: You always have to learn, you always have to be open.
Speaker 2: It's to me not about the mastery that you must
Speaker 2: study art. I don't look at poetry in terms of mastery,
Speaker 2: you know. I look at it in terms of something
Speaker 2: that actually educates me, enlightens me, spiritualizes me as an individual.
Speaker 2: And so it's a very very humbling situation. And New
Speaker 2: York has continued to give me that.
Speaker 4: I've actually never heard someone described as that poetry you said,
Speaker 4: so it humbles you, Yes, you use that word. Tell
Speaker 4: me how does poetry humble an individual?
Speaker 2: Because for me, I see that as a service that
Speaker 2: I'm called to give you, know, and when you are
Speaker 2: this servant, you are in a humble situation. You are
Speaker 2: know heerchically. You know, a savant is lower, so to say,
Speaker 2: you know, just like the world a program. A program
Speaker 2: is not somebody who goes to own things. You know,
Speaker 2: you are there to experience things. That's why you are programming.
Speaker 2: You don't really own any space. You're just there temporarily.
Speaker 2: And to me, that's the way I see the work
Speaker 2: that I do. You know, any place I am, I
Speaker 2: don't see any kind of finality apart from the natural
Speaker 2: impermanence for what situation in the world that we're very
Speaker 2: very impermanent here no matter what we do, no matter
Speaker 2: what we own, no matter what influences, we're going to
Speaker 2: live here one day, and that particular situation. I don't
Speaker 2: find this tragic. It's actually something beautiful because what it
Speaker 2: does is that it shows us how precious the gift
Speaker 2: of life itself is, and that we should not waste
Speaker 2: our lives in bitterness looking for people to dominate to
Speaker 2: you mean, people to show how powerful were, how influench
Speaker 2: are we are. I find that actually better destructing and boring.
Speaker 4: Absolutely no love.
Speaker 1: I love this.
Speaker 4: I love this energy that you have towards poetry. Now
Speaker 4: I almost want to say, like as someone that's also
Speaker 4: Nigerian and Ebo. I mean, I feel like it's almost
Speaker 4: in our culture and our blood to really be of
Speaker 4: the arts. I honestly really do believe it's just in
Speaker 4: the spirit of our people. Tell me, I mean, how
Speaker 4: much how much of your kind of artistic as a poet?
Speaker 4: How much was that received well by your family? Was that?
Speaker 4: But I know, you know, as much as it's in
Speaker 4: our blood, it's not necessarily always perceived well when we're
Speaker 4: anything outside of maybe these stereotypical great careers like doctor lawyer.
Speaker 4: You know, how was it being pursuing the arts specifically
Speaker 4: as a writer? Was that encouraged by your family? Were
Speaker 4: you supported well and that in this endeavor?
Speaker 5: Well, not quite. They didn't support it. They didn't discourage it,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 2: Impact I think it baffles them. I remember when I
Speaker 2: was a teenager, when I sat there writing and all that.
Speaker 2: At some point my dad just says, you know, you
Speaker 2: will have growed this. I'm not in a very not
Speaker 2: in a sort of a bitter way, but it just felt,
Speaker 2: you know, it's one of those faces your past, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. At seventeen, you know you're just
Speaker 2: gonna have growed this and my first book, title Old
Speaker 2: Flower Child, appeared when I was twenty five in Nigeria,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight. When that book came and my father
Speaker 2: just somehow looked at it. He didn't say much, but
Speaker 2: what he did was he went along showing it to
Speaker 2: all his friends behind my back. He was proud actually
Speaker 2: that his son, you know, wrote a book.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: But I don't think that in terms of profession, because
Speaker 2: somehow he always felt, and I think the entire family felt,
Speaker 2: you're going to start read a poet, an artists, how
Speaker 2: are you going to live?
Speaker 5: And so on. So I understand that kind of confusion.
Speaker 2: It's as if I really confused them by what I took, seriously,
Speaker 2: what I showed that. Look, listen, I just realized this
Speaker 2: is my life's work. And as a teenager, for you
Speaker 2: to say that, of course, others are bound.
Speaker 5: To say you are crazy.
Speaker 2: How do you know you haven't even experienced it in
Speaker 2: life and all those things. But the truth of the matter,
Speaker 2: like you said about our culture, I remember my grandmother,
Speaker 2: my grandmother telling me, you know what, as a child,
Speaker 2: you were the best dancer in the village.
Speaker 5: I loved dancing. I love dancing to you know, gongs.
Speaker 2: I loved playing playing gongs, playing drums, you know, following
Speaker 2: masquerades around and being a masquerade myself, and all those
Speaker 2: sort of things that I didn't use the word art for.
Speaker 5: They were just natural.
Speaker 2: I grew up in that environment where music is not
Speaker 2: just for entertainment. It's usually something you used to celebrate birds, debts,
Speaker 2: seasons and so on, new youm festivals. You see, all
Speaker 2: those things to me were very very natural, and that
Speaker 2: presence of music is still I realize it's still in
Speaker 2: everything I've written, every book I've written, music has been
Speaker 2: very very central in there, without my even planning it
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: So in terms of the family, like I said, now,
Speaker 2: in these days, they just have accepted it. It's about
Speaker 2: just the accepted that this is what this brother seems
Speaker 2: to be doing, and he's been doing it now for decades,
Speaker 2: so we just allow him to. So I appreciate the
Speaker 2: fact that this somehow there is no hostility towards it.
Speaker 2: But I say earlier on they didn't understand what hotu
Speaker 2: was about when I started doing it as a teenager.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's such a I mean, it's such an
Speaker 4: unfortunate it. I'll be frank with you. I feel like
Speaker 4: it's so unfortunate a lot of people, like you said,
Speaker 4: I mean, poetry, it has the power to change so much,
Speaker 4: bend reality. It's so unfortunate so many people that are poets, writers,
Speaker 4: they don't get maybe the proper familial support, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean that they should, because it is such
Speaker 4: an incredibly courageous endeavor as a career. You know, you
Speaker 4: really are, like you said, a pilgrim. You know, you're
Speaker 4: you're trotting on unspoken things to really help people see
Speaker 4: things that they've never seen before. So I do wish
Speaker 4: that more people kind of supported, you know, people in
Speaker 4: their family, whether it be children, you know, whoever in
Speaker 4: your life that really does take this path.
Speaker 5: So we do.
Speaker 4: We do appreciate, you know, for continuing on with your path,
Speaker 4: regardless of you know, whatever the up bringing, Brad, you know,
Speaker 4: following your heart. You've obviously changed a lot of people's
Speaker 4: lives with your amazing work. I mean, now what I
Speaker 4: find it what I find interesting about your poetry. So
Speaker 4: you blend language and reality, I mean, and I feel
Speaker 4: like that's an interesting kind of mix, you know, blending
Speaker 4: different languages as you write, I mean, have you ever
Speaker 4: written a poem? I guess I want to say that
Speaker 4: kind of And you know, as someone like you that's
Speaker 4: so perceptive with the art of poetry, you find it
Speaker 4: as a humbling experiencing to write. Have you ever written something,
Speaker 4: I mean, maybe that scared you, or something that unsettled
Speaker 4: you as a viewer, as a voyeur of this world,
Speaker 4: have you ever written something that's kind of shooking you
Speaker 4: up a bit?
Speaker 2: In fact, I was writing their line about that I
Speaker 2: think was yesterday or something, which is that I'm attracted.
Speaker 2: I'm drawn to teens that scar me. You know, if
Speaker 2: I look around, I might even find the you know,
Speaker 2: the exact whatever it is then where I wrote about it,
Speaker 2: because very I don't know how you even mentioned that,
Speaker 2: you know, suddenly, I'm very, very drawn to things that
Speaker 2: scare me because I feel I would say things that
Speaker 2: challenge me. Because if something doesn't challenge me, why why
Speaker 2: do you keep doing it? You know, I don't really
Speaker 2: I'm not somebody who just thinks you have to be
Speaker 2: replicating something. I don't like branding. There are people who
Speaker 2: feel this is your brand, right, this is the way
Speaker 2: you have to do it all the time. And I
Speaker 2: believe that you don't really need to be the same
Speaker 2: kind of power all the time. You don't need to
Speaker 2: be writing the same poem all the time. If the
Speaker 2: poem desires something else, you must have the courage the
Speaker 2: propensity towards following the power and being loyal to the power.
Speaker 2: It's not about your own image. It's not about what
Speaker 2: the critics are written about your work. But I'm always
Speaker 2: asking what does the poem want? Where does it want
Speaker 2: to go?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 2: Where does it want me to? Where does it want
Speaker 2: me to follow it to? And that actually comes back
Speaker 2: about being scary is a scary thing to do. But
Speaker 2: because I'm used to it now, I no longer use
Speaker 2: the word scary, you know, for it. It's just my
Speaker 2: way of being. And I realize that's the way that
Speaker 2: actually poems come to me, because somehow they seem to
Speaker 2: know that I'm open to whatever it is they're suggesting,
Speaker 2: whether it's very very contradictory, or whether it's something that
Speaker 2: people might just say, how can you say that? People
Speaker 2: don't say these things in the open. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: for my poetry, if my power desires that that needs
Speaker 2: to be said, I would say it, you know, And
Speaker 2: that's part of something I'm grateful I will say, to
Speaker 2: the universe for being able to give me that particular
Speaker 2: equipment to be able to listen to the poem and
Speaker 2: not relate to any that institution or nations, because's very
Speaker 2: very important.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: I know it's natural for us to be encouraged, for
Speaker 2: us to be praised. We love praises, to hear it
Speaker 2: and all that. But you know what, if the poem
Speaker 2: wants to contradict itself in terms of book to book
Speaker 2: the way it's doing in my own work.
Speaker 5: I just follow it. I just follow it.
Speaker 2: Like I said, again, I am there to be able
Speaker 2: to do what the poem wants me to do. And
Speaker 2: that's again it's just not easy to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, this idea of being there to do what the
Speaker 4: poem wants you to do, it's almost it sounds almost
Speaker 4: to me like you, to lack of a better term,
Speaker 4: you submit yourself to the art. You submit yourself to
Speaker 4: what you believe is the greater power of the spoken word,
Speaker 4: the oral tradition. So that kind of leads me perfectly
Speaker 4: into my next kind of question. Right, So, your work,
Speaker 4: it's been translated into many different languages, Okay, So like
Speaker 4: when you see your poem, Let's say you write this
Speaker 4: poem in English, when you see it translate into a
Speaker 4: different voice, as in a different language,