What does it mean to be an African Poet?

Lorna Dawes Author

06/26/2018 Added

56 Plays

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African Poetry Book Fund Poets talk about their experience as African Poets.

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[99:59:59.999]What does it mean to be an African poet?
[99:59:59.999]Something of a funny question.
[99:59:59.999]I mean, I would say it means to be an
[99:59:59.999]African who writes poems. Um... but I
[99:59:59.999]suppose it means, um... to be someone
[99:59:59.999]who writes and writes and writes and
[99:59:59.999]keeps trying, I think maybe we all
[99:59:59.999]write poems and we begin to think of
[99:59:59.999]ourselves as poets as we culivate
[99:59:59.999]the habit of noticing within the familiar
[99:59:59.999]things that are like revelations. I think
[99:59:59.999]also to be an African poet, for me, I
[99:59:59.999]would say, it's maybe different from
[99:59:59.999]being a Shona poet or ‎Zimbabwean poet
[99:59:59.999]or a Shona-Ohio poet, which is to say
[99:59:59.999]it moves beyond the specific and, um... for me to feel
[99:59:59.999]that I've learned as much from an ancient
[99:59:59.999]poet like um...the...the oral griots
[99:59:59.999]who came up with the Epic of Sundiata or from a contemporary poet
[99:59:59.999]like Gabeba Baderoon from South Africa.
[99:59:59.999]So to look beyond my own ethnic or
[99:59:59.999]national background, but to have a sense
[99:59:59.999]that there is a shared project of political
[99:59:59.999]aesthetic with other Africans. I'd say that
[99:59:59.999]What does it mean to be an American poet?
[99:59:59.999]What does it mean to be Latin American
[99:59:59.999]poet, what does it mean to be an Asian
[99:59:59.999]poet, an English poet ,a French poet, a Swiss
[99:59:59.999]poet, a Japanese poet, an Australian poet.
[99:59:59.999]There's nothing special about being an
[99:59:59.999]African poet. I think, as a person when
[99:59:59.999]I'm writing, I'm not thinking "Hey I'm from
[99:59:59.999]Nairobi". Just leave alone African, such a
[99:59:59.999]big place, like, I mean I'm from Nairobi, and
[99:59:59.999]even Nairobi is to big for me. I'm from
[99:59:59.999]a certain part of Nairobi and beyond
[99:59:59.999]that I'm Kenyan, I'm East African. Like, do I
[99:59:59.999]think about all these things when I'm
[99:59:59.999]writing or do I think about kind of a
[99:59:59.999]collective subcultures. Do I think
[99:59:59.999]about the collective imagination, do I
[99:59:59.999]think about what is here, like... what is my human
[99:59:59.999]condition and what do I do to survive. So before
[99:59:59.999]thinking about the politics of being an African
[99:59:59.999]writer or being black or being main black
[99:59:59.999]writer. I'm thinking about what is this work
[99:59:59.999]that I'm doing, and what is it doing for me. You know
[99:59:59.999]its the work of survival, its a work of love.
[99:59:59.999]But beyond that... you know, geopolitics and identity
[99:59:59.999]politics. Obviously we can't assume
[99:59:59.999]that Africa does not exist. I can't assume
[99:59:59.999]that Kenya does not exist, um...we just...
[99:59:59.999]we're going to be having our elections in a month
[99:59:59.999]and I'm thinking like as a person, as a poet like, do I
[99:59:59.999]write outside what is happening around
[99:59:59.999]me. Do I write outside, you know, what is happening
[99:59:59.999]in the Mediterranean, people drowning. Do I write outside
[99:59:59.999]what is happening in Northern Nigeria
[99:59:59.999]Boko Haram. Do these things influence my
[99:59:59.999]imagination, and of course I'm in such
[99:59:59.999]close proximity. We can...do I then...am I then required
[99:59:59.999]to kind of like...to be part of this huge experiment or this
[99:59:59.999]huge reality that is Africa. I don't know,
[99:59:59.999]I think... I think it's really a matter of... of choice and
[99:59:59.999]aesthetics and, I've always like, tried to think
[99:59:59.999]of myself like, "What do I think about
[99:59:59.999]first?" Do I think about forms and aesthetics,
[99:59:59.999]or do I think about what is happening,
[99:59:59.999]what is material, what can be touched.
[99:59:59.999]Like all the graves and pains and all the
[99:59:59.999]joys. So it's balancing all that...umm.
[99:59:59.999]So I don't know if I'm an African poet.
[99:59:59.999]I'd like to think I am a poet.
[99:59:59.999]What does it mean to be an African poet?
[99:59:59.999]I think that, that might be the aesthetic question
[99:59:59.999]of the next years, of the next decades
[99:59:59.999]and the time to come. Is it to be of
[99:59:59.999]African descent? Is it to have grown up
[99:59:59.999]on the continent? or Is it to have parents
[99:59:59.999]who are African origin? you know... it's um...
[99:59:59.999]whatever definition we settle for, will
[99:59:59.999]have to be... will have to be inclusive
[99:59:59.999]and multiple in dimension because there are
[99:59:59.999]very... many ways, many beautiful ways to be African.
[99:59:59.999]I'm not sure what is means to be African,
[99:59:59.999]or human or, you know any marker that has
[99:59:59.999]to do with the body or with the worldly.
[99:59:59.999]I think I struggle with that a lot. But I
[99:59:59.999]understand what it means politically and
[99:59:59.999]I understand what it means, for me anyway,
[99:59:59.999]um...socially, and that's... that's um... Series of
[99:59:59.999]investigations for me that have to do with
[99:59:59.999]trying to get comfortable with place and
[99:59:59.999]with a sense of yearning. Um... and with
[99:59:59.999]the impact that exile has on my own
[99:59:59.999]sensitives to image and to other people,
[99:59:59.999]and what that means in terms of being a global
[99:59:59.999]citizen and so, yeah. To be an African poet
[99:59:59.999]specifically. I think means to hold those
[99:59:59.999]threads at the same time and to think
[99:59:59.999]about how they can contribute to problem
[99:59:59.999]solving. Really, because I've never been
[99:59:59.999]shown in this world that I'm exempt
[99:59:59.999]from the concerns that people have about
[99:59:59.999]my politicized body and the worry that
[99:59:59.999]they have and a sense of intrusion that I
[99:59:59.999]feel in the US, and a sense of displacement
[99:59:59.999]I feel, both from my own Somali culture,
[99:59:59.999]and from, you know, from the US as well. So
[99:59:59.999]being a poet is the perfect thing actually
[99:59:59.999]for that, because being a poet deals with
[99:59:59.999]ambiguity and with series of problems
[99:59:59.999]that don't have clear answers.

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