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Stephen Ogunfoworin is a fourth year Law student in
University of Ibadan. His poem, "The Women", won the 2017 Okigbo
Inter-university Poetry Prize. When he is not reading or writing poetry, he
does public speaking and journalism. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria.
Q: What was the
process of writing your particular poem, On Sons Who
Hate Their Fathers?
Growing up, I had a bit of an apprehensive relationship with my father, who was
the embodiment of the typical Yoruba father: strict, uncompromising, and hardly
ever reluctant to use the cane. None of that mattered very much back then
though, he was my hero. But in my senior years in secondary school, our
relationship became a strained one, and I was hardly ever comfortable around
him. During this same period, I found out from listening to some of my close
friends in boarding school that I wasn't the only young man who didn't know how
to act or what to say around his father. I wasn't the only one who could not
stay ten minutes in a room with his father without inventing a reason to leave.
About three years later, I was in my first year in university and my
relationship with my father was completely in the doghouse. I was angry with
him. I was very angry. So I barely talked to him, and saw him even less. Some
of my anger with him seeped into a few of my other relationships, now that I
think about it. And right in the middle of this phase, I started to notice some
things that I did almost exactly the same way he did them. I began to catch
myself doing some of the things I didn't like that he did. This bothered me a
lot. I didn't want to imagine a world where I had a son who would one day be as
angry with his father as I was with mine. So, "On Sons Who Hate Their
Fathers" was written. It was a bit difficult to write, because I was
trying to write a deeply personal poem while trying my hardest to use as little
of my own story as possible. I should add that my father and I are now on very
good terms.
Q: What does poetry mean to you?
I started writing poetry in 2015, after my mother died. It was purely a coping
mechanism for me, and almost everything I wrote back then was about grief. Now,
I think I may have come some distance from that time. Poetry to me is the
purest way for a person to share their emotions, exactly how those emotions are
felt. With poetry, you can use your words to share your thoughts in the most
accurate ways, and make your reader feel very close to what you're feeling. I
don't think there could possibly be a more authentic mode of communication. It
is also a vital tool in talking about important issues in the society, and I
think every poet has a duty to use this function of poetry. If your work has an
audience, you have to use it, at least a little bit, to talk about issues that
some of your audience may not be paying enough attention to. It's good to write
poetry about love, loss, grief, beauty, and pain. But it's also important to
write about inequality, child abuse, drug abuse, and poverty. Lastly, poetry,
other than making it easy to share your thoughts with others, makes it even
easier to listen to theirs. I think good poets have to be attentive. I think
I'm a lot more interested in people, their stories, their emotions, and their
actions, because of my poetry.
Q: What are
your five year goals with your poetry?
My five year goals. I want my poetry to keep getting
recognition. I want to write more, and keep getting better. In five years, I
intend to have gotten a postgraduate degree in Creative Writing, I intend have
a full-length collection of poems, or two. I hope that in five years, I will
have become something of a household name in African Poetry. Honestly, in five
years, I just want to have several absolutely beautiful poems I can be proud
of.
Q: African poets are
you keen on reading?
Ah. African poets. Definitely Warsan Shire. Sometimes, my
friend Chinedu Arinze (who is also a brilliant poet) and I spend hours on the
phone, talking about her poems. I think she's brilliant. I don't think there's
anything written by Yrsa Daley-Ward that I'm not absolutely in love with.
Ijeoma Umebinyuo's poetry is fierce and beautiful. I used Niyi Osundare's
poetry collection for a course I took two years ago, and he's a genius. And I
find Nayyirah Waheed's poetry soothing. Jane Dennis, my friend, writes
beautiful poetry too.
Q: What are some of the challenges you face with
poetry?
I'm not sure if this is the situation for other African
poets, but where I come from, a lot of people still do not take poetry
seriously. There are people who think a man has no business writing poetry, and
there are people who think poetry is usually just a few fancy words strung
together, with no real meaning. Someone I love once told me that they thought
it was odd that I wrote poetry, which in their opinion, was a complete waste of
my time. I struggled with my poetry for several months afterwards. Personally,
I have two challenges with my own poetry: I never think anything I write is any
good, ever. I am always editing my poems. And I don't spend as much time as I
wish I could on my poetry. I'm working on the latter these days.
Q:
Is there anything of importance you would like to share with
literature teachers, who are reading this?
I think that it is important for people, literature teachers
and learners alike, to understand that literature is dynamic. I have had
discussions with a few people who are thoroughly convinced that poetry must be
in some exact form, to qualify as poetry. To these people, if your poetry does
not follow some rules, then you are not really a poet. I disagree strongly with
this line of thinking. My friend, Chimdinma Onwukwe, who has helped me improve
my poetry over the years, once told me that the only thing a poem needs to be a
poem is that the poet calls it a poem. I think it's okay to let many of the
rules that guided poetry in the past change, to let the art form evolve. So, as
far as poetry is concerned, I think all anyone should need is that the poet
calls their work a poem. That's what makes it a poem. I want literature
teachers to know this.
Q: Any parting remark?
I am immensely grateful to the Babishai Niwe Poetry Foundation for this
opportunity, and the judges for validating my poetry. I did not think that this
poem would make the longlist, and I certainly did not think that it would make
the shortlist, but I am elated that the judges deemed it worthy both times. I
do not take this for granted. Thank you. And to the other poets on the
shortlist, I have read your poems, I have even stalked some of you a little on
social media, and I cannot stop gawking at the sheer talent in your work. I
wish you all success in your journey through poetry, and I hope you never tire
of writing the beautiful things that you write.
The #Babishai2018 shortlisted poems can be read here:
Details about our #Babishai2018 poetry festival are here:
