Three Questions for David Ishaya Osu

David Ishaya Osu is fast becoming an old friend to us here at The Ex-Puritan. In 2015, we were happy to see his poem “Playthings” land in our inbox. He was later interviewed in The Town Crier about that poem and other poetic issues. Now, his “Letters with Three Nigerian Poets” has been published in Issue 42 of The Ex-Puritan. Given the breadth of all his involvement, there are many questions I’d like to ask David. Also, David is moving to England to study poetry this fall. Click here to contribute to his GoFundMe drive to help support him in that move. 

E Martin Nolan: I want to start by looking at documentation. In your interview, you write to Emman Usman Shehu: “I think Nigerian literature is suffering from what I term ‘the willful laziness of memory.’ Documentation is poor, literary biography is almost nonexistent.” Shehu responds that the lack of documentation “is a sad reflection of our structural deficiencies, and the way we prioritize things.” You also link to an interview with the son of Major General Mamman Jiya Vatsa, who in addition to being a general was also a poet and supporter of literature in Nigeria. Of General Vatsa, his son says: “He said he wished Nigeria does not go through that phase [of civil war] again. I marvel when people beat war drums nowadays because they don’t know how bad it is.”This distance between reality and perception is not unique to Nigeria. Can you reflect a bit more on the consequences of that failure to document? What does it mean, specifically, in the Nigerian context?

David Ishaya Osu: One consequence of the failure to document is that we miss the wonders that follow our daily lives. Either for reflection or enjoyment. Or both, right? You know, a part of our cognition as human beings is designed for things of the past. We will always seek to trace time and our body, to the very last point. Whether they are ugly or beautiful things, and by ugly or beautiful I mean, pleasure or pain in total connection to our senses.Interestingly, documentation can be achieved in a million ways besides writing or photography. We can document through food; I mean, there are dishes that date way back in time. We can document through music, fabrics, architecture, machines, blacksmithing, brass, sex, childbearing, husbandry, horticulture. The other day I watched a documentary of a sea silk seamstress, and it struck me how a skill or virtue’s been passed from one era to the other. Personally, I feel it’s a little kind of us to give ourselves (via skill or creativity or love) to a past that has yet to materialize and won’t until we are long gone, if you get what I mean. It won’t cause any harm or be a crime even if the legacy is heartening to but one soul. Yet, it’s all a choice. You notice I didn’t go to the Nigerian context, right? Because I believe we are first of all humans; and humans make art, humans make love. The lack of things is there, for sure, there is the abundance of things as well. So, my focus is on the abundance of things, the abundance of grace and beauty.

EMN: Given the difficulty and ugliness poets inevitably face when we “cast a cold eye” over the past, how do you think the younger poets you interviewed, Adeeko Ibukun and Jumoke Verissimo, maintain the level of romance that is so apparent in their work? Again, this drive for beauty existing alongside the acknowledgment of human-induced horror is a near-universal tension for poets. I’ve been mulling over it for a while. In an interview with Canisia Lubrin, I attempt to name this tension: “the horror-beauty paradox.” For you, how do you think Verissimo and Ibukun resolve that tension, because, surely, they have not shut themselves off from the ugliness of history?I’m thinking of Verissimo overcoming the modern forces she says threaten to “mold us into frustrated ranters,” and instead admiring that “there is no fear in the coconut tree.” I’m thinking of Ibukun “going through a place heavy with memories” and concluding “it is joy.” Shehu insists that a major reason to write poetry is “to have fun.” You yourself told The Town Crier that “silliness is a therapist.” I agree wholeheartedly. But I cannot stop asking of poets: how and why do we maintain such positivity in the face of so much ugliness?

DIO: I’m glad you bring this up, because it does bring up  the point that water will always find its way. And this isn’t just about poets or poetry; it’s a human thing, an animal thing, a plant thing. As beings we will always find a way to survive and thrive, even to the extent of choosing to die when we feel convinced that death is a way to survive, I mean as an exercise of our human right to live or die. We maintain such positivity because it’s in our DNA. It’s our nature to rise, it’s our nature to fall. Joy and sorrow dwells in us. How we put into effect or how we enact this power is through diversity. We are a multitude of waves within an open globe of energy. The tension isn’t unique to a poet; it’s also a thing for my mother who doesn’t write poetry—and every other person regardless of what they practice. We are in this world and of this world, and vice versa. What we do or do not do is left to us. It’s our choice. I mean, I was thinking some days back that I am myself capable of both good and evil, that I can actually conceive both bad and good and go miles to actualize them. However, it’s my personal choice and reason to embody one or both. We will see beautiful things, we will see ugly things. Things are things; the angle of sight makes a difference. Flora and fauna will continue to live.

EMN: You are preparing to set off on an adventure, for a stint studying poetry in England. Big congrats on that. Based on your extensive publication history, I trust the move will prompt a flurry of writing from you (I just knocked on wood so as not to jinx you).Perhaps we can set up a little bit of a time capsule here, to be looked back upon after the fact. How do you expect your perspective to change with the move? Do you expect to cast your imagination back home, travelling abroad being a fantastic way to gain perspective on home? Or do you want more to jump into the new place all the way? Do you have anything you’re planning on working on?

DIO: Goodness, what greater adventure, ever, is there other than dying in or for Nigeria? My expectation is constant electricity. [Laughs.] I mean, that’s the major thing that slows my productivity in Nigeria. Wait, and the presence of books and people who make them.Basically, I write anywhere, so long as my body is at home. Home is every place that I can be my truest self in, creative and free, writing with no worry of power cuts for days and no worry of finding books. One keeps striving for greatness wherever one finds oneself. I definitely will be working on my manuscripts and collaborations. One project I’m working on: British-Nigerian poet, Adura Ojo and I are co-editing an international anthology of poems, artwork, and photography in honour of my friend, Sophia Basan, who suffered from chronic Lyme disease and MS and passed away in 2016. There’s lots of work to be created. Also, there are other art forms I’m into that most people don’t know I practice, so I shall be bringing things out.From my perspective, I am open to anything. I am free to become anything, to grow and expand; I am free to shrink if needed. On whether I will cast my imagination back home having left, I don’t know; I’m a nomad. In all, what I know is that nothing will stop me from being creative. Oh dear, what shall separate me from the love of poems? I just want to make art, great art.

E Martin Nolan is a poet, essayist and editor. He edits interviews at The Puritan. His first book of poems, Still Point, was published with Invisible Publishing in Fall, 2017. Learn more at emartinnolan.com.

David Ishaya Osu was born in 1991 in Onda, Nigeria. He is a poet, memoirist, and editor. His work has appeared in Magma Poetry, Poetry Wales, Transition, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Eureka Street, Slice Magazine, Platypus Press, Birmingham Arts Journal, among numerous international publications. His poems and essays are also published in anthologies including: RædLeaf Poetry: The African Diaspora Folio, A Thousand Voices Rising: An Anthology of Contemporary African Poetry, Maintenant 10: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing & Art, and Evening Coffee with Arundhati Roy, compiled and edited by Onyeka Nwelue. David is a fellow of Ebedi International Writers Residency, and is a board member of Babishai Niwe Poetry Foundation. He is the poetry editor of Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel.