Richard Ali: What is the process of writing a poem like for you? Is it a lot of hard work or easy?
Zakiyyah Dzukogi: If writing involves strenuous efforts, it should be a challenging process, just like Amy Joy said:” Anyone who says writing is easy isn’t doing it right “.
First, I refuse to mention ‘Writer’s Block’ as part of these arduous processes because I believe it is only a way to cover up for one’s laziness. However, I would like to count laziness as the first challenging process since I consider myself a lazy poet these days. Lol.
Wanting to produce a brisk poem is as tough as it is fun, unconsciously or consciously. The processes kick off from disrespecting a poem that doesn’t want to match your satisfaction or expectations to resting your writing spirit for another bad day, from collecting unassembled poems to congress isolated liners, from recognising the origin of your revelation to comprehending a poem’s cheap or expensive depth. Writing is lovely, so these are systems I find pleasing.
Richard Ali: Please describe your sense of identity in this or any possible world in imagery or metaphor.
Zakiyyah Dzukogi: I look at myself with my mind and am my father’s prayer.
Richard Ali: 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?
Zakiyyah Dzukogi: If poetry isn’t therapeutic, then what is the point of it? The power of healing in poetry is to the writer and the reader. For others, the basis of writing is to dispense therapy to their readers and themselves in addition to entertainment. If I write poetry, I write it for myself and my readers.
Poetry is an old genre known for preparing remedies for grief. I am a poet, and I have equally enjoyed the treatments it offers and have made therapy discoverable to the readers of my work.
“The Prayer” is one of my poems disguised as an orison. I have laid out hope and conviction in “The Prayer” for loners and despairing individuals who happen to read what I write. No doubt, poetry is multi-directionally therapeutic. I am the first to be saved by my poems. Each completed one gives me a personal sense of elevation.
Richard Ali: What does Africa mean to you, as potential or reality?
Zakiyyah Dzukogi: Africa is a distinctive stone on the sand.
Richard Ali: 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.
Zakiyyah Dzukogi:
I read anything, but Hauwa Shafii’s Prayer is one that I am glad I found. I like solid and healthy poems, and Hauwa’s Prayer is a robust mixture of goodness for me and others.
“that day, they shifted into new forms like angels trying out space.
In prostration, they were identical”
This line is holy. The poem is sacred. I love that God is in this poem.
PRAYER
every time I break skin to escape myself, it is a prayer
rendered to blood. every time my heart widened
itself in love to a person, it was a prayer offered in defiance to order.
i am trying to say that the first time my father stood behind his soon in prayer,
it looked a lot like absolution. the earth around them shifted into place.
it was a lifetime looking backward, a sigh in reverse.
and how do you measure progress except to say it is happening differently?
the gap between them was sometimes water, sometimes a hole.
either way, it was a vicious mouth, gaping all the time.
in prayer, it could have passed for peace.
prayer held the gap between them and called it sacred. with the same mouth,
It swallowed it afterward. it was mercy in a tongue that was also kind
i have always known mercy to set out with a sharp edge.
that day, they shifted into new forms like angels trying out space.
in prostration, they were identical,
backs bent, an offering to god. standing and heads bowed,
they were a restitution. but foreheads to the ground,
they became human and human
father and son
human and son, father and human
human and human
Zakiyyah Dzukogi is a Nigerian poet and a member of the Hill-Top Creative Art Foundation with three published poetry collections. She is a two times winner of the Nigeria Prize for Teen Author, poetry, 2020 and 2021. She won the Splendors of Dawn Poetry Contest, 2019 December edition, as well as the Brigitte Poirson Poetry Contest, April 2021 Edition. She has her works published or are forthcoming in Upwrite Nigeria, Artmosterrific Chapbook, Nigeria Review, INNSAEI Journal, Konya Shamrumi, Literature Voices, Book o Clock, Corona Blues, Poetry Tuesday, Heartlinks Magazine, Paradise on Earth International Anthology, Piam. Voices, Kalahari Review, Melbourne Culture Corner, Olney Magazine, Rigorous, The Account, Mixed Magazine, Beatnik Cowboy, Spillwords, Sledgehammer, the Dillydoun Review, Tilted House and others.
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- Poet’s Talk: 5 Questions with Zakiyyah Dzukogi - August 19, 2023
