Zakiyyah Dzukogi: What is the process of writing a poem like for you? Is it a lot of hard work or easy?
Yewande Akinse: For me, writing a poem can be likened to hunting, armed with words, I go in search of more words to give some meaning to thought and fruition to an idea. Hunting requires precision, patience and timing and so does writing. It is true what they say, if it’s easy then you’re not doing it properly. Writing is hard work, it begins when trying to carve a niche or find a genre with which you are at peace. I have chosen poetry as my medium and salve in expression for I find poetic license to be a freeing thing.
Zakiyyah Dzukogi: Please describe your sense of identity in this or any possible world in imagery or metaphor.
Yewande Akinse: I love to think of identity as the place where I come from, where I was born, my religion, where I currently am, the circumstances surrounding my birth, my name, my family, and the society that shaped me, but I recognize that identity constantly changes. There are a lot of places I would love to move to if God pleases, and I will identify with these places too, and they will become metaphors and imageries in my poems.
Zakiyyah Dzukogi: If any of your poems could literarily save a person’s life, which poem would it be and can you describe the person whose life you think it would have saved?
Yewande Akinse: I wrote a poem titled, “Keep on” found in my first collection of poems titled, “Voices: A collection of poems that tell stories”(2016) – a collection which in retrospect was forged during such hard times. Poetry was the fabric that kept me warm and together. As the title implies, it is a poem of hope and perseverance. The entire collection tells stories of hope and perseverance, another title in the collection such as “Makanjuola ” too might save someone’s life. I will describe this person as trapped in the mundane facets of existence and non-existence, lost, invisible and seeking to break free from hardship, I will describe the poor Nigerian. Hope held me together and saved my life, I mean, the belief that my life will change for better in a way I know not, is an audacious thing. I have realized that hope is a tangible thing and it never fails. To this person, I say, don’t give up, your time too will come.
The collection can be accessed here.
Zakiyyah Dzukogi: What does Africa mean to you, as potential or reality?
Yewande Akinse: I love Africa, and I have written many poems about my continent and country, Nigeria. Some poems are happy, some poems are sad but all poems stem from a place of love, unrequited love sometimes, our relationship is abusive. Africa breaks my heart most times, a continent with so much to give and offer has so little. In Africa, I have seen people with the finest hearts and skin, it will always be home, regardless. Africa means home.
A poem I wrote which encapsulates my hope and dreams for Africa was published by the good people at Afritondo and titled, “Vision.”
Zakiyyah Dzukogi: Could you share with us one poem you’ve been most impressed or fascinated by? Tell us why and share your favourite lines from it.
Yewande Akinse: I recently came across a moving poem, albeit short, by Olav H. Hauge, it is a poem titled, “That’s the Dream“
That’s The Dream
By Olav H. Hauge
That’s the dream I keep in secret –
that something miraculous will happen,
that it has to happen,
that time will open,
that the heart will open,
that doors will open,
that stones will open,
that springs will give,
that the dream will open,
that one morning I will slip into
a harbour I have always hoped to know.
This poem encapsulates my dream, especially “that stones will open.” Everything hard and impossible will give way to the fruition of my wildest dreams. You see, I believe strongly in the silent power of hope which comes as a small still voice most times but real still, that’s the dream I keep in secret.
Yewande Akinse is a Poet and Author of two collections of poems titled, “A Tale of being, of green and ing” (2019) and Voices: A collection of poems that tell stories (2016). She holds a Bachelors’s and Master’s degree in law from the University of Lagos. Her poems have appeared in Afritondo, Trampset, Galleyway, Nightingale and Sparrow, The Creative Zine, The Agam Agenda, The Open Culture Collective, Shuf Poetry, Visual Verse and elsewhere.
She is the winner of the World Bank YouthActonEDU poetry prize, the Project Knucklehead prize for Creative Rebellion, The Guardian Newspaper Poetry Prize and The Fidelity Bank prize for creative writing. She is also a multidimensional individual committed to solving problems and a serial entrepreneur driven by deep intellectual curiosity, hard work, creativity and innovation. She is married to Fela Buyi Akinse and together they have a daughter named, Sijuade.
- Poet’s Talk: 5 Questions with Nasiba Babale - September 5, 2023
- Poet’s Talk: 5 Questions with Ibraheem Uthman - August 29, 2023
- Poet’s Talk: 5 Questions with Zakiyyah Dzukogi - August 19, 2023
