1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Thank you, rob. My first book, Preface for Leaving Homeland, was published in 2019. I had received an invitation from the African Poetry Book Fund for their chapbook series, headed by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani. The series has become a new cultural venue and has already produced new-generation African literary stars such as Gbenga Adesina, Gbenga Adeoba, Afua Ansong, Adedayo Agarau, Nour Kamel, Leila Chatti, Rasaq Malik Gbolahan, Momtaza Mehri, among others. So, as I was saying, I was nominated to submit to the boxset series. Before then, I had written individual poems addressing a variety of subjects. But my first sustained work that explores the precarity of mobility in Africa and beyond would be the chapbook. The overwhelming experiences of African migrants moving through trans-Saharan and Mediterranean routes become daunting archives that will inform most of the poems. In Contraband Bodies, I was thinking about African migrant within Africa as a racialized figure; this includes the xenophobic rage in South Africa now; I was thinking about migration from below and what I mean by that is rural/urban migration; I was thinking about my private memories as a Black African migrant moving across different diasporic spaces, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and within Africa. But I don’t own these memories alone. I have described Contraband Bodies as a personal record—I think this work imbricates other public experiences of the Black diaspora.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
It is a personal story that I am always glad to credit to my grandfather, who I would call a Yoruba poet, for his skill of oriki, a genre of oral poetry in Yoruba culture. He introduced me to the gift of literature and the sublimity of the Yoruba language. Yoruba is a highly tonal language, and quite musical. This does not mean all Yoruba people are poets, but the language is the first linguistic resource point for someone interested in literary culture. From that background, we can pick one or two things about my growth as a young writer. As a student, even when I was interested in poetry, and I had read literary greats such as David Rubadiri, Oswald Mtshali, Wole Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo, Kofi Awoonor, Jared Angira, I didn’t know how to begin writing. In 2005, Gabriel Arishe, a teacher in my secondary school in Shao, who had taken it as a duty to mentor me in English grammar, told me I could also write poetry. I thought I needed some celestial power to do so. That day ended with me writing a poem I titled, “Moonlight Days.” I wish I still had that scrap of paper on which I wrote the first poem.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I don’t know the best answer to this, rob. But my writing process is very chaotic. I am not very organized, and I won’t recommend my model to anyone. My writing is very slow and scrappy at first. Many of my works, including creative non-fiction, don’t make it out and end up in the trash bags. I may have an idea to work on and gestate for a long time; bit by bit, the lines may appear. Maybe one or two of my poems came perfectly shaped. The others are through a series of revisions, and the editorial infrastructure I have built through friendship and mentorship.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
A poem can begin in any way from random things: a scene by the roadside, a conversation with a friend, a walk in the bush, your annoyance with a TV show, or an event going on locally or globally. Inspirations can come in different ways, including dreams. I think when I started writing Contraband Bodies, I just wanted to reimagine out-of-placeness in another way, especially for the African on the move. I wrote a number of poems that Elee Kraljii Gardiner worked on during my Yosef Wosk Fellowship, but it was she also who told me, you have a powerful collection in view. Then I wrote a bit more and went through a series of revisions before I had my first full-length.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I think from my little understanding, community is everything. It is what poetry, like any other artistic form, thrives on. Public readings are a great chance to talk more about your work and connect with your audience. I do not think they are counter-creative. I think even in reading, there is a chance to open your work up to a conversation you might not have imagined, prompting you to see its weaknesses and strengths. I am grateful for all the invitations to read Contraband Bodies since its publication.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
Quite a poignant one there, rob. Truly, I just want to write first, but my writings generally are concerned with social change, and raise more questions about the atrocities rather than providing answers; I want to escalate concerns about abuse of human rights, and dehumanization of Black African migrants across micro-macro spaces, including the low mumble of racialization of African migrants within Africa. I want to explore the conditions of Nigeria’s nationhood, and so many things that postcolonial failures in Africa can evoke. I think this is not to say that my work reveals nothing, but I do not want to pre-empt my readers or lovers of my writing. I can only hope that when they embark on the readerly journey of my work, they find moments that are striking, that subvert hegemonic tales, and that absorb them emotionally. I want to meet my readers, and ask, so my poetry does that too. Oh, I never knew!
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
Arts, as you know, can be perverted. Arts have been in the service of oppression. rob, let me tell you about what is going on in the case of Nigeria. The politicians, after their tenure, are writing hagiographies (life-writings of sorts), and they are getting reviewed by professors who praise them. In the books, they glorify themselves and talk about their good deeds for the masses. That is how terrible it is. Globally, too, you know, there are writers who side with horrendous leadership and even justify their need for the governance. Writings were first used to service colonialism itself; I recall now Achebe’s “The Image of Africa” where he is in dialogue with Joseph Conrad. I think as a writer, I want to reject grand narratives. Speaking against tyranny and oppressive structures has been a whole duty, and this is my pure sentiment given my own background, appearance at the margin, as a person from a country like Nigeria. Tell the counter-story.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I think editors need to be acknowledged more for the powerful work they do in the replenishing ritual of the manuscript. It is vital to work with an editor. This is a peer-review process that allows one to see some of the blindspots in one’s work as a writer. I was able to publish Contraband Bodies because of Contraband Bodies, for example, because of the wonderful work of Jennifer Bowering at NeWest, and my Nigerian editor, Joy Chime, at Narrative Landscape. Thanks to many friends, too, including Hussain Ahmed, Ifeoluwa Adeniyi, and Jumoke Verissimo, who read the manuscript.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Write and wait for the loads of rejection. It is not exactly how Wole Soyinka put it in an interview I watched. But don’t think rejections won’t come. They will, and so many great writers, have those in them inbox. You remember the New Yorker's rejection letter to Gabriel García Márquez on July 15, 1989, for his story “The Trail of Your Blood on the Snow.” This is a common thing in academia, though. We should not just be discouraged by them. For Contraband Bodies, I got many rejections from presses in Canada and beyond. Thank you to NeWest and Narrative Landscape for their faith.
10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
With a bottle of water spiced up with lemon. That will be followed by a cup of coffee. I want it Black too. No writing routine, especially for my literary work. I just write when the impulse grips me to do so. Sometimes it is morning; other times it is in the afternoon. I do writing where it meets me–jot on my phone, scrap of paper, email drafts, inside the bus, and so on. This is not the same for academic writing, which is more methodical and demands some linearity in planning and scheduling.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
See films/documentaries. Explore Edmonton. Chat and gossip with my partner. Read more.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Foods! As a Yoruba man, Amala precisely. I have tried to reenact the memories of home through the diasporic foodways, but you know, it can’t be the same. Have you tried Nigerian jollof, rob? There is a great war going on in West Africa between Nigeria and Ghana now about who cooks the best Jollof. Nigeria, of course.
13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Yes, rob. Music, science, visual arts, sculpture, farming, travels, and even reading other people's work influence my writings. Take, for example, my poem “Akiwowo” from Contraband Bodies, which was influenced by the music of Grammy winner Babatunde Olatunji, also titled “Akiwowo.”
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
As a critic, I admire many theorists and scholars. While I can’t say this set is my favorite, a number of writings influence my scholarship/critical writings, Frantz Fanon, Jacques Derrida, Achille Mbembe, Edward Said, Chigbo Anyaduba, Mahmood Mamdani, Akin Adesokan, Evan Mwangi, Carli Coetzee, Rinaldo Walcott, and so on. I have been mentored by many writers, scholars, and theorists whom I haven’t met. See, I can’t exhaust this list. Outside my work, I would say When Air Becomes Breath by Paul Kalanithi. It is a devastating one.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I like traveling, and I would like to see many great places I have read about in literature. Although, as you know, writers are always broke. Did you read this recent symposium piece by The Baffler, “The Profession That Does Not Exist”?
16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
Maybe a farmer. I still love farming. Back in the days, in my hometown Shao, I helped my father a lot with weeding guinea corn fields, yam fields, corn fields, and acres of cassava fields.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I think as a literature student, reading writings by writers across cultures and societies makes me fall in love with writing as a creative process. The sublimating power of writing does it for me. There may be other talents I have not explored yet. But let me use this opportunity to recommend our film documentary project, on which I am an associate producer, Ebrohimie Road. It is a film on the African Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, directed by my friend Kola Tubosun.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Salvage: Readings from the Wreck is a wonderful work; Its style is distinct and distilled. I am now reading One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad. Film, haha, I would say, Mati Diop’s The Atlantique. Mati’s film may be considered a bit old now, but the poetry of the film makes it transcendental as a cinematic masterpiece that explores class and mobility. But there are so many great films out there that I have not been able to watch. People have talked a lot about Sinners, but I have not had time for it. I should do this in the summer! There is also My Father’s Shadow. My list of films is long o.
19 - What are you currently working on?
Now, I am working on an anthology project that explores winter experience and the Afro-Canadian diaspora. This will be published by Wilfried Laurier U Press in 2027. The call is out.
