DCW: I don’t know if you have ever seen Nardwuar’s
interviews, but he always leads with this question, which I think is an
important one: Who are you?
UN: I am a nomadic living archive. I am not willing
to entirely concede to things and rituals that overtake us as human beings.
Overcoming limits is part of what a poet does. I aspire to be true to my
emotional intensity and personal sensibility while writing. To be aware, to be
attentive, to be a positive force in the world. I am committed to living
practical poetry.
DCW: Living in Public, your 10th volume
of poetry, was released in July of 2018. Having been a little more than a year
since it’s been out, how has the reception been? What are your feelings about
it now?
UN: That’s my 12th volume of poems. The
book is now out in the world and getting into the hands of those that need it.
The batch with the Small Press Distribution (SPD) outlet is sold out. Some
bookshops still stock the book. Copies are available in libraries too. I am
happy about that. I wrote the poems in that book in quick succession. The voices
in the book are anti-assimilationist in stances. Wordstrokes of personal and
spiritual veracity. Writing a poem makes me realize that I am interested in
something or someone. I tend to think that the political does not always have
to become Agitprop. My feelings about the book now? I feel I am still in a
generative phase of my work rather than retrospective.
DCW: I recently finished reading eel on reef,
and I feel as if I’ve just returned from a long journey. I’m wondering if you
could share with us where a poem begins for you. What brings you to the poem,
and how do you know whether or not you’re on to something?
UN: The beginning of a poem for me is both exciting
and frustrating. I build a poem moment by moment. Mostly I know I am on to
something when the process of birthing a poem underscores my allegiance to the
tangential, the ecstatic, the expansive and minimal frequencies. And to chance.
Yes, eel on reef (2007) was truly an artistic journey. During that phase of my
work, I reclaimed the essence of freedom and translated it into poems. The
factors that bring me to a poem and get it rolling are remorselessly awkward
and variably manifold. A kind of quest that never ends.
DCW: One thing I admire about your work is the need
to return, re-visit the work; in order to pick up something that may not have
been apparent during the previous encounter. What is it about surrealism
specifically which allows for a sort of ambiguity, possibility to sprout?
UN: Perhaps surrealism is a continual voyage. It’s an
ongoing revelation of inner and outer selves/states. A surreal poem is partly
an autonomous channel. Its efficacy derives from the freedom of the spirit and
the freedom of the body. The poem is immune to literary, moral, social,
nationalistic, and cultural overdetermination.
DCW: Human beings, and humanity as a whole, are very
complex organisms. Your work definitely reflects those complexities. As well, you
recently wrote that you were rallying against conservatism in contemporary
Nigerian poetry. Do you wish to elaborate more about what you are aiming at? How
is this campaign fairing?
UN: Calling it a campaign was just speaking tongue in
cheek. But nevertheless, I am very bored with poems that are overweaponized.
Poems don’t always ask questions and they don’t always give answers. Poetry is
not a mirror. Poems invite us to see and feel the world through new ways. I am
against conservative poetry everywhere, not only in Nigeria. I oppose a
singular approach to poetry. I don’t support generalizations. There is no
barrier or boundary in poetry that I don’t want to cross. I don’t care for
poetry that venerates classist social and political conventions. I love scandalous
poems! And I need to state that so far there is not enough debauchery /eroticism
in contemporary Nigerian poetry. The literary canon ought to be elastic.
DCW: Thinking now of the fact there are many artists,
writers, thinkers whose work did not gain traction among the masses until after
their deaths: Van Gogh comes to mind, as does Basquiat, among others. Why do
you think this is the case? Why are societies, as a whole, so impaired in recognizing
the greatness of the artists who walk & work among them?
UN: Most societies spawn zombies. That’s why. Most
people prefer the familiar, the routine, the tame, the comfortable, the
predictable, the agreeable. Daring is anathema to the status quo.
DCW: In a recent interview with Paul DeRienzo, you
spoke about performing poetry, and how the poet and the audience come together
to make the moment happen. How it’s a two-way street. What about the
relationship with the solitary reader? Do you see any similarities and/or
differences in how the moment is made between poet and reader, as opposed to
poet and audience?
UN: I really don’t separate the page and the stage.
In each of those spaces, engagement is indispensable. Even with a large
audience in a hall or club or bookstore or stadium, I aim to speak individually
to each person. To communicate one-to-one. I believe in the earthy and the
transcendent power of poetry. Thus my relationship with the solitary reader is
based on sharing and exploration too. A nourishing mutuality. This relationship
is very active because a poem is changing (in motion) while you are reading it
or listening to it being read. I hope that nothing I said here limits what my
poetry is trying to do.
DCW: Thank you for your time, Uche. I really
appreciate it. Is there anything else you would like the people to know?
UN: Thank you for your curiosity! My new volume of
poems titled FACING YOU will be published in Spring 2020 by City Lights
Publishers in San Francisco.
Uche Nduka is a Nigerian-American poet, essayist, collagist. He is the author of twelve volumes of poems of which the most recent is titled LIVING IN PUBLIC(2018). Some of his writing has been translated into German, Dutch, Finnish, Italian,
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