Arao Ameny: Hi Tiwalade, it’s nice talking to you again. Do you want to go first? At the Rari Poetry Workshop, I really liked your questions about womanhood, so maybe we begin with them.
Tiwalade Adekunle: Yes, it’s nice talking to you again, too. In our discussions at the workshop, I wanted to know how, as Africans and female African poets, we further complicate or add to the prevailing discourses around Blackness. Following 2020, I think a lot of people have become more conscious of the violence that Black people across the world face. We have seen different protests in the U.S. and outside the U.S. We had protests in several African countries, too. So, what do you think we can bring and offer to the discourse?
Arao Ameny: There are so many African women writing who are not as known as some of the African women authors that we see in the media, back home and in the diaspora. So, I think it’s my responsibility to share their books, articles, and blogs. I read a lot of blogs by women, who don’t have a book published or huge social media presence but are saying and asking important questions. I hope I answered your question.
Tiwalade Adekunle: The direction I thought you would take was how we could add the discourse to our art, but I love that you shifted the focus off us, and more towards amplifying voices that are marginalized. There’s such great work that’s being done and not enough attention is given to it. And that’s what I really love about your response, this ask to move beyond ourselves and our immediate communities towards people in other spaces doing other works, and making sure their voices get heard as well.
Arao Ameny: Yes, especially in this pandemic, where everyone feels isolated. Writing is solitary, but it’s wonderful to find a 16-year-old girl, say in Namibia, writing about her experiences as a woman, or growing into womanhood. I think it’s helpful to share that blog post/story or to write her an email and say, “Hey, I’m in the U.S. and I read your work and it’s amazing.” People did that to me. Yes, it’s great to amplify your work, but it’s also great to just amplify women who are working, writing, and may not necessarily be published. They need that community or someone to know that their work is read, and they are seen and heard.
Tiwalade Adekunle: Absolutely. My next question is directed at your work; one of the things I love about your poems is that they come from a genuine place where you portray a great, nuanced picture of what it means to be an African woman. Is this something you actively try to achieve, or does it come organically? Are there things you are consciously doing, like choosing what to include versus exclude?
Arao Ameny: I’m glad you asked this question. Essentially, it just happens. The first poem I published was about women, the importance of land rights and inheriting land in Uganda. And the second poem in World Literature Today was about what mothers go through when their sons and daughters are killed by police violence. In the latter, I approached it from a US perspective, but that could apply anywhere in the world where Black people suffer police brutality. Someone once messaged me about how these pieces are about women and very feminist. I did not realize that because it wasn’t intentional, these are just important issues that disturb me. It bothers me that in Uganda, women work and toil the land, but can neither own nor inherit land unless offered by a man. Before George Floyd, there was always an epidemic of Black people across the world being disproportionately killed by police, and I have always wondered what these women go through after; how do we grieve as a community for all these people dying? With my work, I’m trying to interrogate the things that keep me up at night. It’s constant dialogue within myself and engagement with others and the works I read because mine doesn’t exist alone
Tiwalade Adekunle: I reflected on this question too and I realized I have never tried to intentionally bring these elements into my work, but I can’t also separate who I am from how I see the world. I do the work that honor my people’s stories because they mean much to me. And even though I do not think about this while I write, it still informs my writing in ways that are not explicitly realized.
Arao: I remember you said something similar in the workshop about the need to write things that are important to you, that you always think about. I have read your biography and your work, which I adore, and I’m just curious about who and what you write for.
Tiwalade: Thank you! That’s so kind, and the feeling is mutual in your work too. When I sit down to write, I’m writing what is urgent to me at the time. I’m not necessarily thinking about an audience. But I think I’m writing the kinds of poems that I needed to read when I was 13 and with lots of passion about injustice, questions about who I wanted to be and was supposed to be in the world. In many ways, I have evolved from that place to a place where I have precise stories to tell and lots of arguments about the world and about how I believe things ought to be. So, my poems are sort of geared towards answering some of the questions that I had when I was younger. I would also say that I write for people who grapple with these questions too, who see the world and see a lot of things that are not right and wonder how to articulate their thoughts.
Arao: I like what you said about writing for people at a certain station in their life, what you wish you had at the time. I want to throw the same question back at you. To what extent does your work engage with the political implications of African-ness and womanhood?
Tiwalade: In my poems, I use the “I” a lot as much of my work focuses on the personal. But the personal is political, so even as I draw on what it means to exist as an individual, the lens through which I do that is based on how being a Black woman has shaped my experience. I really enjoyed writing this poem, “You Tell Me Go Back To Your Country,” because it took the experience of an individual and interrogated what it meant for the speaker of the poem and other individuals like that; it’s political because it engages the immigrant experience with xenophobic and racist attitudes in society. So, while I write from a personal place, being a Black woman still informs my work.
Arao: That’s amazing. The title of the poem, is it something that happened to you or were you writing a universal Black story?
Tiwalade: In the time I have been in the US, I have encountered people who have been hostile to me for being in a space they considered theirs. I used it to capture the sentiment people express when they question another person’s existence in a space. And in writing that poem, I wanted it to hold the emotion that comes with feeling like I do not belong. In reality, most people do not intend to leave a space where they feel most comfortable and go be an outsider elsewhere. But life circumstances.
I have seen some of this in your work as well. In “Home Is a Woman,” you mentioned feeling like an outsider in your own home, which is really interesting. Do you want to expand on that?
Arao: I am really glad you spoke about this feeling of otherness. Sometimes, even in black spaces where people look like you, the feeling of not being wanted is still there. With “Home Is a Woman” I wanted to show how a Black immigrant woman who understands feeling like an outsider in the U.S. goes back home after a while and then becomes an outsider. This one time, I am back in Uganda, my home country, and on the ride to my family’s house, the way the matatu driver addresses me, I start to feel like I am not from here, like I don’t belong, and with it comes the feeling that, wherever, I am always going to be an outsider. It is a strange experience; one I don’t ever grapple with in writing. I have found that this is the place where my identity and citizenship are not questioned. No one asks, “What is with your accent?” “How long have you lived in this country?” Or, “Are you sure you are from here?” There’s no otherness in art and it’s comforting. I believe everyone belongs in whatever space they create or create for others.
Tiwalade: That is such a profound way to put this. When you are writing, no one on the page says you don’t belong and it becomes a place where you feel completely safe and vulnerable. There’s a certain placeness that comes with writing, existing in that space where you are here and there and here, and it’s a home for some people.
Arao: I’m curious about what you are working or ruminating on at the moment.
Tiwalade: Right now, I’m working on finishing a collection of poems that I have been writing for eight years now. It explores what we have just talked about. I left Nigeria when I was nine years old and lived in Ghana for a while before moving to the U.S., therefore, I have felt like an outsider most of my life. For a long time, this feeling of otherness was an obsession of mine and the poems in this collection touch on it. But moving forward, I want to write more poems that reflect my experiences as a woman and what I have observed we go through in society. It’s something I have been ruminating on, the burdens that come with living in a woman’s body in this world.
Arao: I cannot wait to read your work when it’s finished, especially where you talk about moving from Nigeria to Ghana and then to the U.S. My friends have talked about the culture shock one experiences while living in another African country and how it’s more than what you get in the U.S., which always comes as a surprise to me considering we are all Africans. I do not read a lot of stories like this so I am looking forward to it.
Tiwalade: You are right, there are so many layers to it. What about you, who are you writing for?
Arao: I’m still figuring that out. I have been working on and educating myself about politics, feminism, social movements, and so on. I want to make sure that when I write, it’s from an informed place. If I’m writing about women and land rights, it’s my responsibility to familiarize myself with the body of work that has come before me. So right now, I think I write for myself. But when I think about the difference my work is making, it becomes a little frightening because these are just words I put together on the page. Random people on the internet text me about the reaction they got from their family and relatives when they read my work. So, I decided to fully inform myself when I want to write something, especially if it’s one that carries a social function, to write not just for myself but also to engage with other writers who have experienced the same and written on the subject.
Tiwalade: That’s good. As a PhD student, we can never do a standalone research project, it has to build upon the work that has come before it. I really love that perspective. With poetry and art in general, we are engaging the world in specific ways and not just creating work alone In order to do that responsibly, we have to understand the work that has come before ours. I admire that you intentionally make this a part of your process.
Arao: Thank you. As a PhD student, I can learn a lot from you. All my friends are doing their PhDs and are always telling me the importance of research. I ask them a lot of questions, like if land rights in Uganda are the same in Kenya, Nigeria, and in South Africa. I’m very much interested in what women go through and learning how to research this effectively so that when and if I put my work out, I can be proud of it without the urge to bury my head.
I have been dying to ask if you could describe your writing process and rituals. How do you get to a place where you feel like you can produce good work?
Tiwalade: For my writing process, reading is the beginning part of it. When I have not written in a while, I try to read people whose work I enjoy because this is where lots of inspiration comes from. Then there’s walking through life and savoring experiences. When I notice something that strikes me as profound, instead of just taking note, I pause and let it soak, no matter how small. I am consciously feeding my soul with different meanings of life so that when I write it’s from a rich place. Writing is something I love and so I never force it, especially when I am not in a formalized workshop environment; when I sit down to write, the writing usually comes from these experiences I have consciously savored. Each time is a little bit different but it often starts with a line which I later build on.
I decided to fully inform myself when I want to write something, especially if it’s one that carries a social function, to write not just for myself but also to engage with other writers who have experienced the same and written on the subject.
– Arao Ameny
Arao: Thank you so much for sharing your writing process with me. Can you tell me which authors or books you are currently reading?
Tiwalade: I am reading Goldenrod by Maggie Smith; she’s a phenomenal poet. Almost every poem in the book gets me elated and often I take screenshots and post them on my Instagram story. I also love Aria Aber, Tracy K. Smith, Ada Limón, and our Rari team, whose works I always gush about to everybody.
Arao Ameny: That’s awesome. I like Tracy K. Smith, too. I have been reading a lot of short stories and plays. But I have also been reading the chapbook Wrecked by the Nigerian writer, Michael Akuchie. I discovered his writing in a workshop that I did where he gave 10 points on crafting a chapbook and ensuring there’s a unifying theme to the poems. Since then, I have been reading his works and his recommendations. I have also been reading African, Russian, and Canadian poets, and The Understudy Handbook by Steven Leyva, my professor from the University of Baltimore.
Just like you, I came to the U.S. when I was little and my high school reading was filled mostly with American and British writers. There came a time when it began to bother me that I knew little about my literary heritage, so I made it a point to read more African writers until African literature became a comfort zone. Now I am trying to get uncomfortable and read widely, from other cultures, and balance my literary citizenship.
Tiwalade: That is beautiful. It’s like research, being conscious and reading widely. Thanks for sharing.
Arao: I want to know what your earliest memory of poetry is. What does poetry mean to you? And what makes a poem memorable?
Tiwalade: That is such a great question. I was exposed to poetry by my literature teacher, an American woman, in form 2 – what Americans call middle school. We were using the British curriculum and so a lot of the poems I read were classic British poems. I remember everyone disliked literature class because of the poems we had to study, which they hated because they were “boring.” I liked the poems and at the time it felt like a dirty secret because we weren’t supposed to, and when I shared this with my teacher, she was glad I did. This was also the raging era of Tumblr. People shared poems they enjoyed in the site and it was there I became exposed to free-form poetry. The poems they shared had a lot of air inside; it was profound, compelling, and true to modern life. After spending so much time on the poetry area of Tumblr, I was able to write my first poem because then I had the sense that poetry did not need to be in the strict form I was introduced to. And I enjoyed the entire process of writing it.
What makes a poem memorable to me? I think my favorite poems are those where the poet takes a simple, ordinary moment, and draws out what is profound about it. Whenever that happens in a poem, I’m just struck by it. That is a time that could easily have been passed on. But the poet sees it, finds a way to connect it to the greater reality of what it means to exist as a person, the complexities involved, and then makes something beautiful.
Arao: I love how you lit up while talking about poetry and Tumblr. I discovered a lot of poetry on Tumblr too. You also talked about poetic forms and writing outside of them. Can you shed more light on that? Is your writing mostly free verse or do you experiment with form?
Tiwalade: Yes, most of my writing is in free verse. I appreciate when poets write in traditional forms and still make something beautiful, it takes a lot of creative effort. In our workshop, we worked on forms and I saw how it trains you to be more disciplined about the choices you make in a poem, even though I hated every second of it. It’s just not for me. I prefer a fluid approach.
Arao: That’s well said. And to segue into my next question, is there a craft essay or a piece of advice that you receive that shaped or changed your approach to writing?
Tiwalade: It’s a really great question. One piece of advice that stuck with me was from my undergraduate professor, Frank X Walker. He had told us to write love poems and after we turned in the poems, he asked “Why does this one need to exist?” Ever since his voice has been at the back of my mind when I write something. It pushes me to give real meaning and add something novel to my poem, something that almost justifies its existence.
Arao: Initially, poetry felt intimidating to me because I studied fiction and journalism. I went out of my way to learn all that I could about it. I felt there was a gap in the knowledge I needed to cover. I had an instructor who would teach me all the rules for different poetic forms and then ask me to break them. When I expressed how impossible this was, he made me understand that it was better to learn certain traditions and forms so well that I could break them. This stuck with me. Another piece of advice that I have kept at the back of my mind is that there’s infinite knowledge out there about craft and writing. There’s always something new to learn.
Tiwalade: That’s really incredible. So, what form would you say most of your poems use?
Arao: Right now, free verse. However, I am currently working on a book of sonnets about the humanitarian crisis in Uganda. Because we have had the same president since 1986, most Ugandans, like me, have only known one president. The manuscript is called Sonnets for the Revolution. This is important to me, so I’m trying to make it work. Earlier you told me you have been working on a book of poetry for eight years and that inspired and kicked me in the butt a little. Now I tell myself, “Stop complaining, Tiwalade has been working on hers for eight years. You will be fine.” So, thank you. I am working with only sonnets here and it’s difficult because there are different types of sonnets. I send them to my former professors and when they send the document back to me with tracked changes, I almost have a heart attack seeing those red inks on every line. Sometimes, I feel like giving up, like writing is not for me, and I should probably just go home and become a funeral crier. But I keep pushing and trying to learn and be better and also know when to break the rules comfortably.
Tiwalade: This is inspiring to me too because I know how difficult it is to write within this form. And the project you are undertaking, from the title only, feels exciting and I cannot wait for it to be completed. One thing I noticed about poems that use strict forms is that the form is not without meaning of its own, and I am thinking about your work and the implications of a political regime and the relationship that has with the sonnet form. Can you talk to me about why you chose the sonnet for this particular project?
Arao: I chose sonnets because I want to write about the humanitarian crisis in Uganda, as messy, terrible, and heartbreaking as it is, in a perfect little strict form. In Italian, the word sonnet means “little songs” and I think they are perfect. My intention is to fit these experiences into this perfect, delicate form. I do not know how long it will take, but I know it’s important that I do the required research and finish this. I admire people who can do research. It takes a lot to produce a poem, story, or play; a lot of thinking and arranging of ideas before the actual writing process.
Tiwalade: It’s really beautiful, the juxtaposition of this delicate, perfect, and restricted form with the crisis in Uganda. Wow.
Arao: Yes. I love your questions and how they have made me think, especially about Africanness and womanhood. I did want to ask you, is there a poem or piece of writing that has ever moved you to silence or caused you to just pause and if so, what was it? When did it happen? What emotions came from this piece of work? I am just curious about what moves you, Tiwalade.
Tiwalade: That’s a really hard one to answer because I feel like every poem I encounter brings that reaction out of me. There is this quote, I cannot remember who said it, about how poetry reaches you either all at once or not at all, like lightning or falling in love, and that’s something I completely agree with. So, it’s hard to pick one specific one. But I will say that one of my favorite poems ever is Ada Limon’s “The Raincoat,” where she narrates her speaker’s childhood, going through back pain treatments, and how the mother of the speaker is really present through the entire experience, and the last lines go, “my whole life, I’ve been under her raincoat / thinking it’s a marvel / that I never got wet.” I found that to be so poignant, and as someone whose parents have given up so much for me to be the person I am today, that really resonated with me. And so, reading this poem, its narrative arc, and the simple way Ada is able to draw a connection between her speaker and the child and mother across the street and then make such a profound statement, is an experience for me. That statement is personally meaningful to me because of my own experience with my migrant parents. It’s why it’s one of my favorite poems. It brings this rush of gratitude out of me.
Arao: Thank you for sharing this. I will check out the poem. I learnt so much from the workshop we attended, but mostly, I learnt about different writers just by listening to what others are reading.
A poem that really stopped me in my tracks is by the Palestinian writer, Noor Hindi. You might know the poem, it’s titled, “Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying.” The reason that poem stuck with me is how she brings to light the privileges white writers have to write simply about life and other mundane things meanwhile writers of color have to tackle serious themes in their works like human rights and racism or any other societal issues. It is interesting that the poem is in a workshop setting and she just goes, “Screw this workshop, my people are dying.” She’s writing about what’s happening to her people in Palestine but, at the same time, it brings up questions like, Is it the responsibility of writers of color to always educate people on societal issues? Can we write about the mundane?
Tiwalade: Thanks for sharing that with me. I would love to check it out.
Arao: Which poets do you find yourself going back to?
Tiwalade: I really enjoy Tracy K. Smith, I think she’s a wonderful poet; Ada Limon, Aria Aber, Safia Elhillo, Gbenga Adesina, Ladan Osman. How about you?
Arao: I enjoy Ben Okri. I have read most of his works and I find myself going back to them. I also go back to the nursery rhymes and folktales our elders shared with us. A lot of that is poetry – the praise songs, the proverbs in my language that’s been translated to English. I have come to notice that poetry has always been there since I was a kid. We just didn’t call it that. I used to think poetry was only the Shakespeare reading in my high school English class, but that’s not true. Poetry is also my grandmother’s singing whenever she cooked over the saucepan. So, I go back to these things: folk, folklore and folktales, and I have realized I am very much interested in learning about them all, not just Ugandans, but Kenyans, Nigerians, and people of other countries.
Tiwalade: That’s really cool. Thanks for sharing. I haven’t read any of Ben Okri’s work though.
Arao: Yeah, you should check him out. I enjoyed meeting you in the workshop and it’s been such a pleasure talking to you now. Congratulations on your wedding and I hope everything goes well with your PhD studies. If you ever have any research tips, I am open to them and would appreciate them.
Tiwalade: Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate your spirit. You have been kind and gracious and such an inspirational woman, and I appreciate the effort you put into this conversation. I want to say that I really trust your work because of the intentionality that goes into your craft. It’s hard to explain, but when I see something that’s from you, I know it’s coming from a rich, genuine, and authentic place, and that it would do something positive. It’s been great learning more about your writing, where it comes from, your approach to it, and some of your interests and passions as a writer. Thank you so much for making time to do this, I couldn’t think of a better person I would have wanted to do this conversation with.
Tiwaladeoluwa Adekunle, PhD, is a creative writer and social scientist from southwestern Nigeria. She is the author of the chapbook “A Place That Knows You” (Etchings Press, 2022). Her fiction and poetry can also be found in South Carolina Review, Afreada, and Breakwater Review, and elsewhere. Her works have received recognition from Sarabande Books, Hollins University, and Purdue University. She was also a semi-finalist for the 2022 Pink Poetry Prize. She can be found on Instagram @tiwalade.a.
Arao Ameny is a Maryland-based poet and writer from Lango, Uganda. She earned an MFA in fiction from the University of Baltimore, an MA in journalism from Indiana University, and a BA in political science from the University of Indianapolis. Her first published poem “Home is a Woman” in The Southern Review won the 2020 James Olney Award. “The Mothers” appeared in World Literature Today’s 2021 Black Voices Series, guest-edited by poet Mahtem Shiferraw, and was selected by poet Paula Bohince for the 2022 Best New Poets Anthology. In 2021, she won a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship and was a Brunel International African Poetry Prize finalist. She was a biography writer and editor at Poetry Foundation from 2021 to 2023. Learn more at araoameny.com.