Literature
Gimba Kakanda is a literary critic, novelist and poet. In this interview, he speaks about his just released collection of poems, Safari Pants.
Your new poetry collection is titled Safari Pants; why this title?
Gimba Kakanda: The title, Safari Pants, is born in ambiguity; I realized that when I was collecting the poems into a volume. The first concept of safari used in the book is created in thought of the usual safari expedition, used with the respiratory ?pants?; so, safari pants are the hard breaths, nay struggles we take on our expedition through life. The second face of the title comes from the safari dress; here the safari pant which some of us wear is used to portray a dress that, accidentally, symbolizes troubled life by a particular experience of mine or simply, safari pant is metaphor of drudgery. Actually, the second side of the title came to me during a demonstration in which a lad dressed in safari pant was chased by a dog and had his pant torn by the beast. This quite pricked a poem in me because the safari pants I was used to weren?t a fashion that goes with haughtiness. Nonetheless, interchangeable images of Safari the expedition and Safari the dress is used in this collection; by this I have to say both sides of the meaning fits in, ambiguously, on occasions that the readers conjure their meanings.
There is a consistent theme of sadness in your poetry. Why?
The world is never a field of continuous feast. We face travails in life, every one of us. The fact that you see folks laughing mirthfully doesn?t portend total happiness. We have inner scars that we can?t just express with desired alacrity which is what poetry does. I inherited the poetry I must?ve encountered in my earlier childhood (I?m still a child, you know). My father was one of those village headmasters that held sway in the postcolonial Nigeria of the late 70?s and early 80?s. I never got to see the best of him because he was sick, and away for medication during my growing up days. So, I used to sneak into his study and steal books to read until my mum caught me one day and thought me some lessons - that meant a moment of love lost. That experience was indeed my initiation into the reading life because I was baffled as to why my mum, whom everyone cautioned for pampering me to a fault, got so annoyed by mere books. She wouldn?t have been thus angry had I stolen her money. Later I mastered a better trick of stealing into the study. Along the line of this thievery, I chanced upon some styled writings which I mistook for song lyrics. But one common trait I observed in those writings, even though I could not perceive the difficult sentences, was angry tone - what I later realized as protest literature of the era. I was to be mocked by time that those writings I took for song lyrics were poems! So, at a time in those years I began to imitate those writings but I think I was more enthusiastic about prose, judged by my obsession with a particular story which I drafted but shamefully tore as I came of age. My first inspiration to write poem was in 2002, when I lost my mother. I was, to say the least, mad! I wrote her a poem simply titled ?Tribute? (included in this collection). It was an embarrassing belch until I grew in the art and gave it a true touch of poetry. So, I don?t think an orphan is indeed a completely happy being; sadness wields the greater portion of human life because however you strive to remain in the course of hedonism, it shall find you.
Other prominent themes in the collection are freedom and the quest for happiness. In a plain language what?s your concept of these two?
First, I?m an African, a black African- the most humiliated race in the history of humanity, so the essence of freedom and happiness is quite understood and celebrated by us in our dispersed locations across the universe. In a plain logic, the quest for happiness and freedom is the dominant wish of a sad and physically or emotionally oppressed hence the recurrence of such attempts in the collection. Nigeria is not an idyll for any thinker; we grumble over our thieving government which is not getting better. And also the fact that we have conscience tears us in sympathy for ourselves, grieving family, friends or neighbours. You can never escape sadness one way or the other, that?s why the literatures of happy characters or tonality never last; it doesn?t depict a long-lasting reality.
The collection also speaks about nature and environment; what are the importance of these elements to human existence and creative endeavour in particular?
Nature and environment are two things you can never cease to depend on. We are all borne in them. Nature and its myriad wonders remind us of the unknown Architect that adorns our dwellings, our environments. All the inventions of man were inspired by nature but environment alone defines our grasp of nature and also life. Nature inspires us to build our environment, and environment inspires us to build our life and art. The heterogeneity of our environments accentuates the variation in our creativity and thematic engagements; an African writer is spun to protest; an American narrates crime or love tales;
What does poetry writing really entail?
Poetry, to me, is the magic of the words- an incursion into another world done to feel the rhythms of life. Poetry is a way of escaping ordinariness of the world for a foray into a more definable life, emotionally, spiritually or musically. Nothing has ever given me half the inner bliss derived from beautifully written poems. I never fantasized with the idea of having my poems published until later in life that I understood that the beauty of arts is the sharing of the crafts. So, poetry was to me a private and secret exercise. A kind of yoga, you may say. My place of residence, Minna, being a hub of literary activities challenged me to strive and attain that level of considerable poetic skills even though I was not physically attached to Minna literature in my formative years.
What were your major inspirations in writing this book?
The environment and personal experiences! What else? Environment inspires and defines every good artiste. In writing the poems in this collection, I resolved to record only those circumstances, occurrences and events that truly worth documentation. I believe that any literary piece that fails to introduce the reader into a fresh grasp of the common life is a bad one. So, my target wasn?t to just gather some measured texts and forward to the printers. The modern world is so riddled with too many opinions on the criterion of good poetry, but nobody can deny that any expression without figurative blends isn?t literary, especially in poetry. That?s my problem with those self-contradicted poets that flaunt modernism or postmodernism in severe cases; their obsession with the modern objects obstructs their perception of poetry judged from their laughable attempts to sound more musical than the musicians.
The funniest extent is when they imitate metrically rhymed verses or concrete poetry; that?s when you?re bombarded with watery expressions that beg for a space on the pages of prose, yet mistaken for poems. Many modernists can?t tell song lyrics from poems. I once printed a Celine Dion song lyric for one and he nodded admiringly as he called it a ?beautiful poem.?
How would you describe your experience in writing and publishing the collection?
A beginner is a sufferer in the realm of art. I think my first relationship with a writer in hope of having these poems published was with the poet Ahmed Maiwada. That?s one fine novelist that history will never forget, for his writings and altruism. Maiwada is one modernist poet whose art are beautiful in an angle; I am not a disciple of his poetry even though I did one of the accessible reviews of his second book, Fossils. When we met in 2008, I reported our encounter in various newspapers just to say, ?Behold, the modernist wants to corrupt me?. Well, it was a sweet encounter but our relationship wasn?t fruitful in a sense that I wasn?t infected by the bug of modernism. I?m not a big fan of the so-called modernist verses. However, Maiwada pledged to publish me in spite of my stubborn refusal to write good poems, his kind of poems perhaps. But, sadly, the Ibadan-based publisher assigned the publication was an egotist that wouldn?t let a neophyte utter a word of correction without sounding offended. So, when the book came, in 2008, it was so irredeemably flawed I rejected it, only to have the publication sponsored by the novelist Abubakar Gimba this year, 2010.
Apart from being a poet you are also an essayist, literary critic and novelist; which of these genres of writing do you find more challenging and why?
No genuine literary activity is easy but one trend that challenges me is literary criticism; being a critic in the literary realm is same as being a frontline activist in the political terrain. Criticism is a dangerous foray because the number of your haters expands in unimaginable progressions. For instance, when my good friend?s book came out, I was the first to have it reviewed; it cut a cord of our relationship. So, being a critic means being an antagonist; the authors perceive your activities as acts of sadism. When Richard Ali and I took on the Northern Nigerian literature, the region boiled in anger, yet the observations were undeniable facts. Richard attached the dying state of Northern Nigerian writings to what he termed ?kowtowing? or Ran-ka-ya-dade stymied writings; by this he meant the critics, reviewers and enthusiasts literarily kowtow in judging the works of familiar, senior or culturally regarded authors. Sadly, I was involved in that selfless display of the literary activism. Another critic, E. E. Sule, is a bigger example of misunderstood critics. Despite being the most active, read and noticed critic in the region, he?s often written off by the affected authors of the region. Well, however they respond, criticism remains the only therapy for resuscitation of the Northern Nigerian literature. Back to the choice based on readership and popularity. Essays come to me, as it would any restless creative writer, with ease. As for being a novelist, I think that tag isn?t for me at the hours because I?m yet to let the world into any bit of my fiction. I?ve never sent my prose works out, not for fear of critics but that belief that I?m yet to attain the level of maturity I wanted to inculcate in my narratives. My writer-friends that had seen my ongoing novel entitled Footfalls of Night praised the scribbles. I wish the world will welcome it. So, readership doesn?t mean superiority of one genre to the other. You see, poetry remains the most superior genre of literature. Poetry is to art what mathematics is to science. A bad student of mathematics rarely makes a good scientist.
In terms of readership, which of these genre would you say is more popular, and why?
If you want me to take essay as a genre, then it is the most popular. The world is forged in longing for the simple and easily digestible creative outputs. I don?t like the noise that people don?t read, especially poems. Truth being the intellectual fort is increasingly becoming a deserted place owing to the wand of capitalism that grips the modern world. Everyone is just after what easily translates into Naira, or easily understood. No one goes after the complex art like poetry chiefly because the world is revolving around capitalism but if we all choose to chase money, who are going to build the art? Good writing is a sacrifice.
What would you say, if I said this book will win a prize?
Prize? Oh no, that?s not going to happen. I know of greater books that never clinch a prize. In Nigeria today, the only way a creative writer is celebrated is having won one of those foreign prizes. Believe me, those that are being applauded in our literary cycles today aren?t the best pack. They are also flawed, some to embarrassing degree. The Diasporan-authors are being acknowledged because of the impartial endorsements by the West. I don?t think that Nigerian critics, especially the scholars, read enough to merit their position in the country; many of them only paraphrase the rambles of foreign press and critics. Read Sefi Atta?s novel entitled Everything Good Will Come which is by actual literary criticism a sociology textbook to Chimamanda Adichie?s Half of a Yellow Sun that betrays the tool of literature with its overt propagandas, and discover for yourself; much as I believe that Helon Habila possesses amazing linguistic dexterity, you can?t compare him with Biyi Bandele. And nobody is talking about Bandele; this is a masterful storyteller of this decade. Nobody talks about Maik Nwosu as they do his companions because our critics are dormant and failed to research into his writings. Nobody talks about Ahmed Maiwada?s novel as they do Chimamanda?s or that classical junk, Kaine Agary?s Yellow-Yellow, which edged a better Jude Dibia?s away from the NLNG Prize. So, if you say that again, I will say, prize shouldn?t be the yardstick of measuring literary excellence. The almighty critic is time.
(c) Interviewed by Sumaila Umaisha and published in the New Nigerian newspaper.
- Rhythms Of Life And Death
SUMAILA UMAISHA?s review of IFY OMALICHA?s collection of poems, Now that dreams are Born, published by Kraftgriots, 2011, p.141. The Nigerian literary scene is fast becoming famous for churning out promising writers. Ify Omalicha, a master?s degree holder...
- Poetry: Sentinel Nigeria Spreads The Gospel
The 3rd of July, 2010 was a special day for the members of the Kaduna State chapter of Association of Nigerian Authors and writers resident in Kaduna, as Unoma Azuah, Professor of Creative Writing at Lane College, USA, lectured them on some vital techniques...
- Okara To Young Writers: Be Patient (interview)
Gabriel Imomotimi Gbaingbain Okara could be described in the local parlance as one who has seen yesterday and today and is looking forward to tomorrow. For, the octogenarian has made a mark on the African literary scene as one of the major pioneer African...
- Signs Of The Time (review)
The concept of time has been an interesting sub-ject of debate among intellectuals even before the invention of measuring instruments like hourglass, sundial and the modern clock. Some are of the view that time is an endless flow that has neither beginning...
- Chimamanda: ?to Write Fiction Is To Try To Make Sense Of The World? (interview)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer based in the US, is fast becoming a house-hold name not only in Nigeria but globally. Her works, especially the novel, Purple Hibiscus, has won many awards including the 2005 Commonwealth Writers? Prize for...
Literature
I used to steal my father?s books to read
Gimba Kakanda is a literary critic, novelist and poet. In this interview, he speaks about his just released collection of poems, Safari Pants.
Your new poetry collection is titled Safari Pants; why this title?
Gimba Kakanda: The title, Safari Pants, is born in ambiguity; I realized that when I was collecting the poems into a volume. The first concept of safari used in the book is created in thought of the usual safari expedition, used with the respiratory ?pants?; so, safari pants are the hard breaths, nay struggles we take on our expedition through life. The second face of the title comes from the safari dress; here the safari pant which some of us wear is used to portray a dress that, accidentally, symbolizes troubled life by a particular experience of mine or simply, safari pant is metaphor of drudgery. Actually, the second side of the title came to me during a demonstration in which a lad dressed in safari pant was chased by a dog and had his pant torn by the beast. This quite pricked a poem in me because the safari pants I was used to weren?t a fashion that goes with haughtiness. Nonetheless, interchangeable images of Safari the expedition and Safari the dress is used in this collection; by this I have to say both sides of the meaning fits in, ambiguously, on occasions that the readers conjure their meanings.
There is a consistent theme of sadness in your poetry. Why?
The world is never a field of continuous feast. We face travails in life, every one of us. The fact that you see folks laughing mirthfully doesn?t portend total happiness. We have inner scars that we can?t just express with desired alacrity which is what poetry does. I inherited the poetry I must?ve encountered in my earlier childhood (I?m still a child, you know). My father was one of those village headmasters that held sway in the postcolonial Nigeria of the late 70?s and early 80?s. I never got to see the best of him because he was sick, and away for medication during my growing up days. So, I used to sneak into his study and steal books to read until my mum caught me one day and thought me some lessons - that meant a moment of love lost. That experience was indeed my initiation into the reading life because I was baffled as to why my mum, whom everyone cautioned for pampering me to a fault, got so annoyed by mere books. She wouldn?t have been thus angry had I stolen her money. Later I mastered a better trick of stealing into the study. Along the line of this thievery, I chanced upon some styled writings which I mistook for song lyrics. But one common trait I observed in those writings, even though I could not perceive the difficult sentences, was angry tone - what I later realized as protest literature of the era. I was to be mocked by time that those writings I took for song lyrics were poems! So, at a time in those years I began to imitate those writings but I think I was more enthusiastic about prose, judged by my obsession with a particular story which I drafted but shamefully tore as I came of age. My first inspiration to write poem was in 2002, when I lost my mother. I was, to say the least, mad! I wrote her a poem simply titled ?Tribute? (included in this collection). It was an embarrassing belch until I grew in the art and gave it a true touch of poetry. So, I don?t think an orphan is indeed a completely happy being; sadness wields the greater portion of human life because however you strive to remain in the course of hedonism, it shall find you.
Other prominent themes in the collection are freedom and the quest for happiness. In a plain language what?s your concept of these two?
First, I?m an African, a black African- the most humiliated race in the history of humanity, so the essence of freedom and happiness is quite understood and celebrated by us in our dispersed locations across the universe. In a plain logic, the quest for happiness and freedom is the dominant wish of a sad and physically or emotionally oppressed hence the recurrence of such attempts in the collection. Nigeria is not an idyll for any thinker; we grumble over our thieving government which is not getting better. And also the fact that we have conscience tears us in sympathy for ourselves, grieving family, friends or neighbours. You can never escape sadness one way or the other, that?s why the literatures of happy characters or tonality never last; it doesn?t depict a long-lasting reality.
The collection also speaks about nature and environment; what are the importance of these elements to human existence and creative endeavour in particular?
Nature and environment are two things you can never cease to depend on. We are all borne in them. Nature and its myriad wonders remind us of the unknown Architect that adorns our dwellings, our environments. All the inventions of man were inspired by nature but environment alone defines our grasp of nature and also life. Nature inspires us to build our environment, and environment inspires us to build our life and art. The heterogeneity of our environments accentuates the variation in our creativity and thematic engagements; an African writer is spun to protest; an American narrates crime or love tales;
What does poetry writing really entail?
Poetry, to me, is the magic of the words- an incursion into another world done to feel the rhythms of life. Poetry is a way of escaping ordinariness of the world for a foray into a more definable life, emotionally, spiritually or musically. Nothing has ever given me half the inner bliss derived from beautifully written poems. I never fantasized with the idea of having my poems published until later in life that I understood that the beauty of arts is the sharing of the crafts. So, poetry was to me a private and secret exercise. A kind of yoga, you may say. My place of residence, Minna, being a hub of literary activities challenged me to strive and attain that level of considerable poetic skills even though I was not physically attached to Minna literature in my formative years.
What were your major inspirations in writing this book?
The environment and personal experiences! What else? Environment inspires and defines every good artiste. In writing the poems in this collection, I resolved to record only those circumstances, occurrences and events that truly worth documentation. I believe that any literary piece that fails to introduce the reader into a fresh grasp of the common life is a bad one. So, my target wasn?t to just gather some measured texts and forward to the printers. The modern world is so riddled with too many opinions on the criterion of good poetry, but nobody can deny that any expression without figurative blends isn?t literary, especially in poetry. That?s my problem with those self-contradicted poets that flaunt modernism or postmodernism in severe cases; their obsession with the modern objects obstructs their perception of poetry judged from their laughable attempts to sound more musical than the musicians.
The funniest extent is when they imitate metrically rhymed verses or concrete poetry; that?s when you?re bombarded with watery expressions that beg for a space on the pages of prose, yet mistaken for poems. Many modernists can?t tell song lyrics from poems. I once printed a Celine Dion song lyric for one and he nodded admiringly as he called it a ?beautiful poem.?
How would you describe your experience in writing and publishing the collection?
A beginner is a sufferer in the realm of art. I think my first relationship with a writer in hope of having these poems published was with the poet Ahmed Maiwada. That?s one fine novelist that history will never forget, for his writings and altruism. Maiwada is one modernist poet whose art are beautiful in an angle; I am not a disciple of his poetry even though I did one of the accessible reviews of his second book, Fossils. When we met in 2008, I reported our encounter in various newspapers just to say, ?Behold, the modernist wants to corrupt me?. Well, it was a sweet encounter but our relationship wasn?t fruitful in a sense that I wasn?t infected by the bug of modernism. I?m not a big fan of the so-called modernist verses. However, Maiwada pledged to publish me in spite of my stubborn refusal to write good poems, his kind of poems perhaps. But, sadly, the Ibadan-based publisher assigned the publication was an egotist that wouldn?t let a neophyte utter a word of correction without sounding offended. So, when the book came, in 2008, it was so irredeemably flawed I rejected it, only to have the publication sponsored by the novelist Abubakar Gimba this year, 2010.
Apart from being a poet you are also an essayist, literary critic and novelist; which of these genres of writing do you find more challenging and why?
No genuine literary activity is easy but one trend that challenges me is literary criticism; being a critic in the literary realm is same as being a frontline activist in the political terrain. Criticism is a dangerous foray because the number of your haters expands in unimaginable progressions. For instance, when my good friend?s book came out, I was the first to have it reviewed; it cut a cord of our relationship. So, being a critic means being an antagonist; the authors perceive your activities as acts of sadism. When Richard Ali and I took on the Northern Nigerian literature, the region boiled in anger, yet the observations were undeniable facts. Richard attached the dying state of Northern Nigerian writings to what he termed ?kowtowing? or Ran-ka-ya-dade stymied writings; by this he meant the critics, reviewers and enthusiasts literarily kowtow in judging the works of familiar, senior or culturally regarded authors. Sadly, I was involved in that selfless display of the literary activism. Another critic, E. E. Sule, is a bigger example of misunderstood critics. Despite being the most active, read and noticed critic in the region, he?s often written off by the affected authors of the region. Well, however they respond, criticism remains the only therapy for resuscitation of the Northern Nigerian literature. Back to the choice based on readership and popularity. Essays come to me, as it would any restless creative writer, with ease. As for being a novelist, I think that tag isn?t for me at the hours because I?m yet to let the world into any bit of my fiction. I?ve never sent my prose works out, not for fear of critics but that belief that I?m yet to attain the level of maturity I wanted to inculcate in my narratives. My writer-friends that had seen my ongoing novel entitled Footfalls of Night praised the scribbles. I wish the world will welcome it. So, readership doesn?t mean superiority of one genre to the other. You see, poetry remains the most superior genre of literature. Poetry is to art what mathematics is to science. A bad student of mathematics rarely makes a good scientist.
In terms of readership, which of these genre would you say is more popular, and why?
If you want me to take essay as a genre, then it is the most popular. The world is forged in longing for the simple and easily digestible creative outputs. I don?t like the noise that people don?t read, especially poems. Truth being the intellectual fort is increasingly becoming a deserted place owing to the wand of capitalism that grips the modern world. Everyone is just after what easily translates into Naira, or easily understood. No one goes after the complex art like poetry chiefly because the world is revolving around capitalism but if we all choose to chase money, who are going to build the art? Good writing is a sacrifice.
What would you say, if I said this book will win a prize?
Prize? Oh no, that?s not going to happen. I know of greater books that never clinch a prize. In Nigeria today, the only way a creative writer is celebrated is having won one of those foreign prizes. Believe me, those that are being applauded in our literary cycles today aren?t the best pack. They are also flawed, some to embarrassing degree. The Diasporan-authors are being acknowledged because of the impartial endorsements by the West. I don?t think that Nigerian critics, especially the scholars, read enough to merit their position in the country; many of them only paraphrase the rambles of foreign press and critics. Read Sefi Atta?s novel entitled Everything Good Will Come which is by actual literary criticism a sociology textbook to Chimamanda Adichie?s Half of a Yellow Sun that betrays the tool of literature with its overt propagandas, and discover for yourself; much as I believe that Helon Habila possesses amazing linguistic dexterity, you can?t compare him with Biyi Bandele. And nobody is talking about Bandele; this is a masterful storyteller of this decade. Nobody talks about Maik Nwosu as they do his companions because our critics are dormant and failed to research into his writings. Nobody talks about Ahmed Maiwada?s novel as they do Chimamanda?s or that classical junk, Kaine Agary?s Yellow-Yellow, which edged a better Jude Dibia?s away from the NLNG Prize. So, if you say that again, I will say, prize shouldn?t be the yardstick of measuring literary excellence. The almighty critic is time.
(c) Interviewed by Sumaila Umaisha and published in the New Nigerian newspaper.
- Rhythms Of Life And Death
SUMAILA UMAISHA?s review of IFY OMALICHA?s collection of poems, Now that dreams are Born, published by Kraftgriots, 2011, p.141. The Nigerian literary scene is fast becoming famous for churning out promising writers. Ify Omalicha, a master?s degree holder...
- Poetry: Sentinel Nigeria Spreads The Gospel
The 3rd of July, 2010 was a special day for the members of the Kaduna State chapter of Association of Nigerian Authors and writers resident in Kaduna, as Unoma Azuah, Professor of Creative Writing at Lane College, USA, lectured them on some vital techniques...
- Okara To Young Writers: Be Patient (interview)
Gabriel Imomotimi Gbaingbain Okara could be described in the local parlance as one who has seen yesterday and today and is looking forward to tomorrow. For, the octogenarian has made a mark on the African literary scene as one of the major pioneer African...
- Signs Of The Time (review)
The concept of time has been an interesting sub-ject of debate among intellectuals even before the invention of measuring instruments like hourglass, sundial and the modern clock. Some are of the view that time is an endless flow that has neither beginning...
- Chimamanda: ?to Write Fiction Is To Try To Make Sense Of The World? (interview)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer based in the US, is fast becoming a house-hold name not only in Nigeria but globally. Her works, especially the novel, Purple Hibiscus, has won many awards including the 2005 Commonwealth Writers? Prize for...