The World Poetry Day is the celebration of poetry, an art that reaffirms our common humanity by revealing to us that individuals, everywhere in the world, share the same questions and feelings. It is observed every 21st of March to promote and adore the art of poetry in order to enable society as a whole regain and assert its identity. Chibueze Obunadike is a young Nigerian poet whose poems are published in the Best New African Poets 2018 Anthology, Kreative Diadem, Libretto, The Muse Journal, Brittle Paper, Conscio mag, and elsewhere. He won The Muse UNN Poetry Prize 2021 and first runner-up in the June 2020 Collins Eleisoro Literary Prize. His chapbook, Smoke is Just a Fancy Word for Burning, was published by Poets in Nigeria in May 2020. You can find him on Instagram @watchmans_flame.
Recounting his experience in the World of poetry, Chibueze speaks to our Editorial Staff Writer, Favour Ebubechukwu about the state of poetry in the Nigerian society.
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It’s the celebration of the World Poetry Day. What is it like to witness this day?
Good day. Thank you for having me.
I’m always excited whenever this day comes around because, as someone who has been heavily impacted by poetry, it means so much to see the craft being celebrated around the world by old and young alike. I’m thankful I get to witness such a moment.
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As an award-winning poet, I’m sure poetry goes beyond the academic definition for you. So, what is poetry to you?
(chuckles) I still feel self-conscious about that title “award-winning.” To put it simply, I see poetry as any attempt to capture and communicate the human experience through the medium of language, whether in verse or otherwise. I usually say that poetry is a result of the heart trying to make sense of its environment and experiences.
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What societal relevance does poetry have in our country?
I think a whole lot, seeing as poetry has to do with the soul, primarily. Poetry interrogates the soul of things, and as an art form, it can be a mirror that shows the society the ugliness or brightness of its heart. It also serves as a voice, a light, in dark times, such as during the pandemic last year with the country on lockdown and during times of national unrest, like the #ENDSARS protests. Many people turned to poetry during those periods.
I strongly believe that the disappearance of poetry from our schools and society played a part in the moral decadence that currently eats at the soul of our country. Poetry is the art of listening to the heart, we have forgotten that.
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Do you think poetry has the attention it requires in our society?
To be very frank, not yet. I think great improvement has been made in recent years given the way young people are increasingly finding their way to it, but we can still do better. If you mention poetry in the average Nigerian circle, people would start naming poets and works from the past 20 to 30 years. While there is nothing wrong with that, never before has the country been filled with such rich, diverse talents like it is now and yet they are scarcely celebrated or have to seek relevance abroad first. This has to change. A poet should not have to gain certain foreign relevance before they are recognized. We should do more to celebrate our own.
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Many literary artists talk about the creative block and how tough it is to get inspired on some days. How do you handle those low moments as a poet?
Well, the way I approach the matter is somewhat different. I don’t see it as a block, rather as a “dry spell.” Creativity, at times, requires a certain amount of inspiration, and often, after rigorous and extended periods of “creating,” it’s normal that your “creative tank” will be low. I don’t know if that’s a good analogy but I hope you get my point.
In such moments, what I do is to walk away from the art for a while and find pleasure in all the simple things I enjoy. Most times, these things provide the fuel I need to start creating again.
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What is/are your sources of inspiration?
First on that list would be God. Or rather, my relationship with God and how that has changed and grown over time. It forms a huge part of my life, so I always find it spilling into everything I write in some way. I’m also inspired by man’s interpretation and interaction with God throughout history. Much of our world seems to have been birthed from or affected by these interpretations and perspectives, so I’m always excited to interrogate it.
Art, in all its forms—music, cinema, theatre, literature, etc.—is another major source of inspiration for me. Anything that speaks to the soul—which is what I consider art to be—always inspires me.
Also, I’m inspired by love, both as a social and universal concept. Sometimes, in my head, I consider myself a love poet (if there is such a thing) because I think everything comes back to love. Everything is love.
Lastly, I am intrigued by the human experience. I’m madly interested in the story of a thing—how did it get here? Why does it exist? What has it been through? Did it exist in a life before this one and in what shape? What has it loved?—whether it’s a person or an object or whatever. I want to live in its head.
There are more but these four form my major inspirations.
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In your book of poems “Smoke is Just a Fancy Word for Burning,” there is a particular poem titled “my lover plays a sad song on the radio while we make love.” Tell us the heart of that poem both on a societal and global scale.
To be honest, when I was writing the first drafts of that poem, society was the last thing on my mind. It had nothing to do with actually making love but I was in the process of mourning a love I had just lost, and the memories were still fresh in my mind. In my head, it was sort of a tragic closing scene where losing love felt like the end of the world, and no matter how many times you replay the memory in your head, the act ends, the scene closes. To bring it back to your question, I believe love is at the core of everything, and losing it will always feel like an apocalypse. Or perhaps worse.
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There are other deep poems, such as “two poems for T,” “saltwater,” and “Egule (the weaverbird),” just to mention a few. The poem, “smoke is just a fancy word for burning,” has a line that reads ‘the opposite of fire is darkness and I am no stranger to it either’. This particular poem appears to be a heartfelt agony of unpleasant happenings in the society. As the writer, what societal flaw did you intend to address with this poem?
What was going through my mind at the time, albeit from a personal perspective, was how much sadness has become part of our lives as young people. Everybody, in some way, has been touched by grief. It’s staggering because no one seems willing to admit how big of an issue it is, especially with our children and youth, which has probably led to the recent increase in suicide among them. Although, I’ll be the first to admit that we tend to romanticize it a lot, too. I’m partially guilty of it in that collection.
I think what we need is a balance of sorts. A way to create a space for discussions surrounding mental health without feeding the monster of romanticism and needless attention-seeking for social media likes or follows, which shifts the conversation away from people in real need of help.
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What would your life be like without poetry?
It would probably be a lot more frustrating and difficult. I believe everyone has that one thing that they turn to when the world around them stops making sense or becomes too heavy to exist in. Poetry is that thing for me. I’m never too far from a poem or a collection of poems at any time because I have found that I often need to disappear into a world that makes sense to me.
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