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at high schools and middle schools i also manage my internet presence and sell books and cds that way like many artists for me making a living is a complex multi headed endeavor but the bright side to all of this is that there is an audience for it i work at that intersection of poetry education and social justice and these are times that call for that sort of work geosi gyasi ezra stead of eat sleep drink music once said of you as one of minneapolis s best and most important rappers do you agree with him kyle guante tran myhre i do in the sense that just about all of the rappers i know in minneapolis are talented and important i think a lot less about my art as competition with others and much more about how it contributes to a larger conversation my goal is never to write the best poem or song it is to use my perspective and style to add something to our collective body of work that does not already exist this goes for music and poetry as well geosi gyasi this question is at the core of the hearts of many of your fans i think what is the inspiration for man up kyle guante tran myhre this is a small thing but i always like to remind people that that poem is called ten responses to the phrase man up and not just man up since part of language is its effect even out of context and intention but i wrote that poem to push back against what i saw as the exploitation of my insecurities by companies trying to sell me things buy this or you re not a real man etc in the process of writing it though it grew into a piece about how that exploitation is directly connected to the oppression of women and gender nonconforming people since men s insecurities are so often based in power dominance and control on some level it s a poem about how small things are connected to larger realities of harm and violence watch kyle guante tran myhre perform ten responses to the phrase man up here end share this share share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x print opens in new window print like loading 1 comment uncategorized permalink posted by geosi interview with 2017 brunel international african poetry prize shortlisted poet nick makoha april 27 2017 brief biography poet nick makoha is a cave canem graduate fellow and a fellow of the complete works in the uk he won the 2015 brunel african poetry prize and the toi derricotte cornelius eady chapbook prize 2016 for his manuscript resurrection man his poems have appeared in the poetry review rialto the triquarterly review boston review callaloo and wasafiri find him at www nickmakoha com geosi gyasi following up on our interview in may 18 2015 you said in one of your answers that i remember quitting my job and burning all my bank suits when you realized you were not doing what you loved my question is do you now feel accomplished as a writer poet nick makoha the word accomplished suggests that i am an artist who is highly trained and skilled however to be honest if we equate writing and being a poet to that of the martial artist i am only at the beginning of my training what you see as accomplishment is my love and passion for the work i do think of derek walcott who passed away recently many of us remember him for his great work omeros this epic was published when he was 60 years old then there is my countryman okot bitek his great work song of lawino was published when he was 35 you should apply the word accomplishment to these writers all the likes of ts eliot gwendolyn brooks terrance hayes rita dove i am merely the student in comparison geosi gyasi do you know what specific ingredient s makes your poetry stand out from other poets nick makoha honestly no writing can be a wilderness or a black hole when faced with an empty page when i write i cannot be certain of what i will create but i know when i have stumbled upon something magical that revelation does not occur at the point of writing it occurs a few months later when i read the poem back aloud and i am moved at this vantage i am able to engage with the poem the way the reader would as i am detached from my writing self the poem almost occurs as a new thing not all the poems that i write survive this process the ones that do l keep and the ones that don t l let go of geosi gyasi tell me about how you selected your ten poems for the 2017 brunel international african poetry prize nick makoha with great difficulty many of the poems were not fully finished i was still revising them during the last week of submission luckily for me i had just come out of a fruitful period of writing six or so poems from that period made it in plus four others that seemed to speak to the six to be honest if we equate writing and being a poet to that of the martial artist i am only at the beginning of my training what you see as accomplishment is my love and passion for the work i do geosi gyasi you re a fellow of the complete works in the uk you would do me a great favour by telling me about what the complete works is all about nick makoha there was a report written on poetry called free verse report it found that less than 1 of black and asian poets were being published when publishers were approached about this they all defended their position by saying it was a matter of taste the complete works is a national development for 10 writers of colour it is now in its third cycle each poet gets access to a mentor workshops and a writing retreat each cycle culminates with an anthology called ten geosi gyasi how important is this year s brunel international african poetry prize to you nick makoha as a writer of colour and as an african to be acknowledged by an award of this magnitude would be a humbling reward in an industry that can be very difficult to navigate geosi gyasi what do you make of this year s shortlisted poets for the brunel international african poetry prize are you familiar with any of the shortlisted poets and or their poetry nick makoha it is a great list i only know one of the writers kayo chingonyi personally but one of the benefits of this prize is that the shortlist introduces us the writers and the listening world to the voices across the diaspora end share this share share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x print opens in new window print like loading leave a comment uncategorized permalink posted by geosi interview with 2017 brunel international african poetry prize shortlisted poet rasaq malik april 24 2017 brief biography rasaq malik is a graduate of the university of ibadan nigeria his work has appeared or is forthcoming in various journals including michigan quaterly review poet lore spillway rattle juked connotation press heart online journal grey sparrow jalada and elsewhere he is a two time nominee for best of the net nominations his poem was among the finalists for the 2015 best of the net nominations recently rattle magazine and poet lore nominated his poems for the 2017 pushcart prize geosi gyasi you re a graduate of the university of ibadan nigeria what did you study at school and how relevant is it to you as a poet rasaq malik i studied english literature at the university of ibadan i spent my undergraduate years reading literary texts recommended in the class and the ones outside the four walls of the classroom however my poetic peregrination started at blue crescent international college iseyin my literature teacher aunty lizzy would read kofi awoonor s poems to us and other poems that till now breathe in my heart and reoccur to me whenever i engage the transient nature of the world the lost ritual of kindness and humanness as regards our daily activities as pilgrims on the road of life i wrote my first poem for the late lawyer and activist gani fawehinmi when i was in sss ii i would also say that university of ibadan provided a platform for me to grow in my own way after reading nigerian poets like niyi osundare remi raji olu oguibe jumoke verissimo etc i realized repeatedly the urgent need to pursue writing as a form of jihad as a tool to deploy for the liberation of the people as a map to trace to reach the promised land so the chain of my poetic sojourn started in school secondary school and stayed with me till i graduated today i still write and find solace in the literary aesthetics and how poetry informs and reforms innovates and renovates incites and instigates resides and inhabits propagates and stirs the world to embrace love and peace geosi gyasi your poetry speaks to the reality of the issues bedeviling a country with a painful past and present of wars bomb blasts lost relatives and many other horrors how does it really feel like living in such a country rasaq malik it is not palatable to wake up to the news of bomb blasts somewhere in kano and maiduguri even when i deafen my ears to the news and live without burdening my life with someone else s tragedy i realize that it is pertinent for me to document the social realities and the diverse quagmires cum casualties that wean us that victimize our collective passion for peace and safety in the times of danger i know that living in nigeria is like walking a dark path treading a thorny path watching your children leave home to return as bodies folded like a prayer mat i realize that it is the same everywhere but there is this reality of death that haunts me in other countries especially the third world countries there is a tendency for tragedy to emerge anytime people are weary of living under an oppressive government paying taxes that end in politicians pockets dying in prisons as innocent victims of an unjust society in nigeria it is the same case people leave their houses at dawn people return to meet wrecks and bodies piled on bodies at twilight some of these unrecorded casualties inform my poems in addition i would like to reecho what yousef koumayaka said when interviewed by tod marshall about race and war responding to the question about the acceptance of the responsibility of poets to speak against violence during times of war he replies i feel that the artist or poet more than the politician or professional soldier is condemned to connect to what he or she observes and experiences reacting to this insightful and thought provoking response i agree with koumayaka that we are bound to view the world through the lens of our writings we should act the role of an observer and a literary tourist a historian and a storyteller it would go a long way in creating an important awareness in a world riddled with trivial events geosi gyasi home is no longer the peace we crave as we wake up every day to hear gunshots in the air to see ambulances racing to the scenes of bomb blasts police cars swarming the streets like insects lured by the magic of light from the poem we don t know where we belong from the above lines do you ever feel proud referring to nigeria as home rasaq malik i love nigeria as a country to me referring to it as a home is another level of semantic interpretation it takes a courageous heart to say this country is a home however writing transports my heart to another realm writing to me is a decisive means of creating a beautiful landscape out of a country wallowing in a sea of war as a nigerian poet living in nigeria i remain unshaken to the cause of working for the growth of my country it is still a home inhabited by people who succumb to the heart wrenching sound of bomb blasts this question reminds me of olu oguibe s i am bound to this land by blood he writes i am bound to this land by blood that s why my vision is blurred i am rooted in its soil and its streams flood my veins i smell the sweat of its men and the million feet that plod the dust of its streets leave their prints on my soul in this poem olu oguibe s admits to the fact that he is bound to this land nigeria by blood this is synonymous to saying that in spite of the enormous problems surfacing every day his land remains paramount and dear to him growing up in nigeria has exposed me to many things also being among the proletariats is another angle to address it every day we hear on the radio how politicians embezzle money and fly abroad to build gigantic houses for their unborn children every day we find it unworthy to develop a passion for a country that reeks of corruption and favoritism on the part of the government while the masses toil and clamour for peace so like olu oguibe i am bound to this land by blood this land houses my umbilical cord it bears my footprints and my sweat and the sweat of my grandfather i know that living in nigeria is like walking a dark path treading a thorny path watching your children leave home to return as bodies folded like a prayer mat i realize that it is the same everywhere but there is this reality of death that haunts me geosi gyasi my best pick of your three poems shown on the brunel international african poetry prize website is being a mother in the north how did you come about this poem rasaq malik the poem was among the poems i wrote when exploring the aftermath of the incessant bomb blasts that occurred in the northern part of nigeria on the lives of people living in places like kano maiduguri kaduna borno etc in nigeria there is a thin difference between someone who has experienced say the killing of his father or the kidnapping of his sister and someone who hears the news about people bombed when observing subhi prayer in maiduguri to me the writing of poems to depict war is an inevitable task in a country like nigeria to me the victims of these needless bombings could be anybody the victims could be my brother my sister my uncles my parents i think this is what harmonizes us in this country this is what unites us as a country populated by poverty ridden people and witnesses of varying degrees of unrest j p clark s the casualties resurfaces at this stage i think the poem portrays it better in spite of geographical gaps and tribal differences we are all sufferers and casualties in this present war we are all trying to find comfort by switching on our radios our ears hoping to hear good news amidst the deluge of bad news engulfing our hearts geosi gyasi to date which of your poems would you consider as your best or most important rasaq malik i write every day i do not really know the poem that grips my heart to the extent of crowning it my best poem i would like to say it is quite difficult to select the best every poem has its own soul and spirit geosi gyasi of all the shortlisted poets whom do you think deserves to win this year s brunel international african poetry prize rasaq malik i believe every poem is important every poem has something to say something striking and piercing something shocking and excruciating something engaging and electrifying something awe inspiring and something taken by the reader as what speaks to him her or what paints his her thoughts or desires brunel through poetry has been able to define arts and plays an indelible role in propagat...
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