Sola Osofisan
03-18-2009, 05:23 PM
Written by Jide Begun
Jumoke Verissimo is the author of recently issued collection of poetry, I am Memory. In this very conversational interview, this up coming poet discusses her art of poetry. WHAT inspired you to start writing poetry?
It’s difficult to say. You can have a medley of experience, familial background, educational background and all, but I don’t know of a definite thing that kicked off the flair. I started writing. I loved to write. I think I’ve written for so long, it’s like a habit. I don’t feel sane if Idon’t write, something, anything a day, not to talk of a week. So, I think I developed poetry from writing too often, and reading too many things. I write other things too. I am a writer. I guess, as a writer your first book defines you.
You used the word flair, do you think the art of poetry is dictated more by talent than skill?
I think so. I think there is a purity of mind to writing poetry. As a poet, you get the desire to tell things differently, and when you force poetry out of yourself, you’ll get a bounty of flowery words, without depth.True poetry is a flair. It is a gift that tells you that white is not just a colour it is the depth of existence. You see, what others ignore. A poet is a prophet who lives outside his prophesy. He’s blinded by his desire to just keep telling. In essence, poetry is dictated by talent and like every other thing, improves with skills. You learn the rule, and you break them.
In your newest collection, you gave a pivotal role to the concept of memory; and we see that this dictates the arrangement of the poems in the volume. We also see that there’s a desire, that sometimes almost turns to mania, to remember everything from the lofty emotions of Ajani to the putrid Niger delta. Do you often use the lenses of a singular theme to create the poems for a volume or you let them come sporadically, then find the common denominator in them, in other words, do you get the theme before the poem or the poem before the theme?
The arrangement of this poem was dictated by poems written 10 years ago. And Ajani, was not in the picture at the time. The first stanza of Ajani was written three years, after the first poem, which was titled Reparations.
From reading your work, and from the conversations I have had with you in the past, you seem to have an aversion for the formal verse. And this leads us to a major gulf among the practitioners of poetry, while some thinkpoetry is nothing if not spontaneous, unedited and unforced, some think there’s no fun in poetry if there are no rules. What does Jumoke Verissimo think?
You know I mentioned something about learning the rules and breaking the rules. I think it is important to learn the basics of whatever writing form you intend to partake. While the inspiration that could bring poetry could be spontaneous, when enough work is given to it, it becomes something to be proud of. I think many writers in their formative years, just want to spill out what they’ve written. And that’s where the argument about 'feeling’ and poetry come to the fore, but as one matures, you understand the importance of making language work for that ‘feeling’, that emotion that you just want to spill. These poems didn’t come out the way they were published.
Okay, let me rephrase it this way. Do you think there is validity in a specific, logical arrangement of words using rhymes and cadences? Do you think there’s music in form? Do you think that music is still valid forcontemporary experiences?
One thing that comes to mind is the relevance of being unruly to stand out. Being unruly does not mean lacking coherence or aspiring towards simplistic writing, rather I think in our present age, rules have changed their meanings from order to chaos. And while you may say my poetry has not exactly followed the forms of traditional English poetry, it’s difficult not to sight the deliberate use of words to sustain lyricism and musical flow. I will be presenting a paper in Macedonia in August, on Poetry and Music. I intend to explore that theme effectively in it.
I agree with you. Do you think poetry is still relevant to the Nigerian political discourse today? Do you think poetry must necessarily correct the ills of society? Can poetry do that? Don’t you think the primary task of poetry is to create beauty since that is the only thing it is capable of?
I think poetry is still very much relevant. You know, I think Nigerians are poetic, and when you meet people who say they don’t like poetry, their thoughts are poetic. (Laughs)
Wonderful!
The average intelligent Nigerian understands poetry, but society has decided for him what poetry should be, and it is that judgement that determines a lot of things. But things are changing now. In the past five years, I have witnessed a state where people are appreciating and understanding literature. People are buying books. And poetry which was never a popular art form is finding its own market with the likes of Jumi, Sage, Chiedu Ifeozo, Jeffery, Efe, Awoko and many performance poets creating a bridge. It has never been relegated tooblivion either.
It just was never a genre that was mass relevant.
However, the poet is as relevant, as he is
important. The best novelists have poetry embedded in their prose, anyway. Take John Steinbeck...
I’d like to know in what language you compose your thought before setting them on paper? Is it Yoruba, English or Portuguese?
I’m one of those who has a jumble of languages, and I think in Yoruba and English. I do not speak Portuguese, how I wish I could.
There’s a disproportionate thematic obsession for the decay in Nigeria. Do you think poetry can correct the ills of the society?
Yes, if the poets can lead us to see through their lines.
I think there’s a kind of life, a strange sense of beauty in the peculiar way we live. We should not judge it, because our judgement is ineffectual anyway and we miss out on a great deal of poetic animus?
One thing I have come to terms with is that we differ. And on this basis, our writing would too. I have friends who see your friendship on the basis of mentorship, and they believe they should teach you what to do and what not to do. There are those who believe it’s a live and let’s live... And many others.....writing is done in isolation, but the process is an accumulation of communal participation, and whatever an individual has garnered from his society would determine how he’d write, poetry or prose. For me, there are no wrong or right. Just bad or good, and this is based on certain things that are expected. We need to understand that every writing has its own target and when it meets that target, then the need is satisfied. As per poetry creating beauty....if all I’ve seen is dump, will you tell me to write of flowers when I’ve seen cowdungs and horse shits!
I don’t personally find flowers beautiful. I’m not talking about beauty of subject. Who says there isn’t beauty in dung too. Look at it from the POV of a mad man and you’d see what I am saying. Eliot’s Wasteland isn’t about flowers, the finest of Okigbo’s poems and the finest of Okot p’bitek’s aren’t about flowers at all. I mean vitality, using language to create an indelible journey with turns and twists and surprises?
Language is the chisel of any poet. It determines her final sculpture.
Who are your favourite poets and what do you like in each? Nigerians first
Akeem Lasisi. I like his ability to yorubalize English, bringing the depth of the Yoruba language into the English language. I love Okigbo. For the passion, that travels in every of his line....I like Funso Aiyejina’s style. I wish I could read more of his poems. Tolu Ogunlesi’s lines exhibit sarcasm, and I like his subtlety where he is talking serious, and there’s the language-driven poems of Odia Ofeimun....Perhaps because I’ve been reading these poets of late, they are in my head now....
What about foreign ones?
I love Anna Akhmatova a great deal. Her style is ‘simply’ haunting. You wonder how anyone could build feelings in the simplest of words without being simplistic. And there’s this writer, a contemporary UK poet, Giles Goodland, with his rather impervious writing style...rather experimental, yet with form.
It’s been a great pleasure talking to you.
Same here. Thank you
Vanguard (http://www.vanguardngr.com/content/view/30623/83/)
Jumoke Verissimo is the author of recently issued collection of poetry, I am Memory. In this very conversational interview, this up coming poet discusses her art of poetry. WHAT inspired you to start writing poetry?
It’s difficult to say. You can have a medley of experience, familial background, educational background and all, but I don’t know of a definite thing that kicked off the flair. I started writing. I loved to write. I think I’ve written for so long, it’s like a habit. I don’t feel sane if Idon’t write, something, anything a day, not to talk of a week. So, I think I developed poetry from writing too often, and reading too many things. I write other things too. I am a writer. I guess, as a writer your first book defines you.
You used the word flair, do you think the art of poetry is dictated more by talent than skill?
I think so. I think there is a purity of mind to writing poetry. As a poet, you get the desire to tell things differently, and when you force poetry out of yourself, you’ll get a bounty of flowery words, without depth.True poetry is a flair. It is a gift that tells you that white is not just a colour it is the depth of existence. You see, what others ignore. A poet is a prophet who lives outside his prophesy. He’s blinded by his desire to just keep telling. In essence, poetry is dictated by talent and like every other thing, improves with skills. You learn the rule, and you break them.
In your newest collection, you gave a pivotal role to the concept of memory; and we see that this dictates the arrangement of the poems in the volume. We also see that there’s a desire, that sometimes almost turns to mania, to remember everything from the lofty emotions of Ajani to the putrid Niger delta. Do you often use the lenses of a singular theme to create the poems for a volume or you let them come sporadically, then find the common denominator in them, in other words, do you get the theme before the poem or the poem before the theme?
The arrangement of this poem was dictated by poems written 10 years ago. And Ajani, was not in the picture at the time. The first stanza of Ajani was written three years, after the first poem, which was titled Reparations.
From reading your work, and from the conversations I have had with you in the past, you seem to have an aversion for the formal verse. And this leads us to a major gulf among the practitioners of poetry, while some thinkpoetry is nothing if not spontaneous, unedited and unforced, some think there’s no fun in poetry if there are no rules. What does Jumoke Verissimo think?
You know I mentioned something about learning the rules and breaking the rules. I think it is important to learn the basics of whatever writing form you intend to partake. While the inspiration that could bring poetry could be spontaneous, when enough work is given to it, it becomes something to be proud of. I think many writers in their formative years, just want to spill out what they’ve written. And that’s where the argument about 'feeling’ and poetry come to the fore, but as one matures, you understand the importance of making language work for that ‘feeling’, that emotion that you just want to spill. These poems didn’t come out the way they were published.
Okay, let me rephrase it this way. Do you think there is validity in a specific, logical arrangement of words using rhymes and cadences? Do you think there’s music in form? Do you think that music is still valid forcontemporary experiences?
One thing that comes to mind is the relevance of being unruly to stand out. Being unruly does not mean lacking coherence or aspiring towards simplistic writing, rather I think in our present age, rules have changed their meanings from order to chaos. And while you may say my poetry has not exactly followed the forms of traditional English poetry, it’s difficult not to sight the deliberate use of words to sustain lyricism and musical flow. I will be presenting a paper in Macedonia in August, on Poetry and Music. I intend to explore that theme effectively in it.
I agree with you. Do you think poetry is still relevant to the Nigerian political discourse today? Do you think poetry must necessarily correct the ills of society? Can poetry do that? Don’t you think the primary task of poetry is to create beauty since that is the only thing it is capable of?
I think poetry is still very much relevant. You know, I think Nigerians are poetic, and when you meet people who say they don’t like poetry, their thoughts are poetic. (Laughs)
Wonderful!
The average intelligent Nigerian understands poetry, but society has decided for him what poetry should be, and it is that judgement that determines a lot of things. But things are changing now. In the past five years, I have witnessed a state where people are appreciating and understanding literature. People are buying books. And poetry which was never a popular art form is finding its own market with the likes of Jumi, Sage, Chiedu Ifeozo, Jeffery, Efe, Awoko and many performance poets creating a bridge. It has never been relegated tooblivion either.
It just was never a genre that was mass relevant.
However, the poet is as relevant, as he is
important. The best novelists have poetry embedded in their prose, anyway. Take John Steinbeck...
I’d like to know in what language you compose your thought before setting them on paper? Is it Yoruba, English or Portuguese?
I’m one of those who has a jumble of languages, and I think in Yoruba and English. I do not speak Portuguese, how I wish I could.
There’s a disproportionate thematic obsession for the decay in Nigeria. Do you think poetry can correct the ills of the society?
Yes, if the poets can lead us to see through their lines.
I think there’s a kind of life, a strange sense of beauty in the peculiar way we live. We should not judge it, because our judgement is ineffectual anyway and we miss out on a great deal of poetic animus?
One thing I have come to terms with is that we differ. And on this basis, our writing would too. I have friends who see your friendship on the basis of mentorship, and they believe they should teach you what to do and what not to do. There are those who believe it’s a live and let’s live... And many others.....writing is done in isolation, but the process is an accumulation of communal participation, and whatever an individual has garnered from his society would determine how he’d write, poetry or prose. For me, there are no wrong or right. Just bad or good, and this is based on certain things that are expected. We need to understand that every writing has its own target and when it meets that target, then the need is satisfied. As per poetry creating beauty....if all I’ve seen is dump, will you tell me to write of flowers when I’ve seen cowdungs and horse shits!
I don’t personally find flowers beautiful. I’m not talking about beauty of subject. Who says there isn’t beauty in dung too. Look at it from the POV of a mad man and you’d see what I am saying. Eliot’s Wasteland isn’t about flowers, the finest of Okigbo’s poems and the finest of Okot p’bitek’s aren’t about flowers at all. I mean vitality, using language to create an indelible journey with turns and twists and surprises?
Language is the chisel of any poet. It determines her final sculpture.
Who are your favourite poets and what do you like in each? Nigerians first
Akeem Lasisi. I like his ability to yorubalize English, bringing the depth of the Yoruba language into the English language. I love Okigbo. For the passion, that travels in every of his line....I like Funso Aiyejina’s style. I wish I could read more of his poems. Tolu Ogunlesi’s lines exhibit sarcasm, and I like his subtlety where he is talking serious, and there’s the language-driven poems of Odia Ofeimun....Perhaps because I’ve been reading these poets of late, they are in my head now....
What about foreign ones?
I love Anna Akhmatova a great deal. Her style is ‘simply’ haunting. You wonder how anyone could build feelings in the simplest of words without being simplistic. And there’s this writer, a contemporary UK poet, Giles Goodland, with his rather impervious writing style...rather experimental, yet with form.
It’s been a great pleasure talking to you.
Same here. Thank you
Vanguard (http://www.vanguardngr.com/content/view/30623/83/)