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NA: 'Some way everything is striking a pose' - a section of So All The Time… presents many paradoxical human situations defined by the poems 'About Life' and 'Anything Else But Human'. If you were made queen of the world today, how would you restore hope to men and women who today exasperatedly would like to trade-in their humanity for something else?
LS: If I were made queen of the world today, I would give special incentive to anyone willing to become professional listeners/ counsellors. I think people who would consider trading in their humanity would do so mainly because they are, for whatever reason, uncomfortable with who they are.
You may call this one of my juvenile conclusions but I feel this low or non-existent self-esteem is a result of past experiences that they cannot forgive themselves for. I try to deal with some of these issues in Song of a Riverbird.
Anyway, talking, I tell you, has got to be one of the most effective therapies. A lot of people just need to talk to someone and say: this is what happened to me in my life and I hate myself for it. And all they need to hear is: Hey but that was so many years ago. Forget it.
So many people (children, wives, husbands, mothers, employees, spinsters etc) want to talk to someone yet there is no one there to talk to. I say this because I know how much it has helped me. And I am obviously not talking of people who have committed heinous crimes. They need to talk to someone too, and it's the police.
NA: In Song Of A Riverbird, your themes widen to talk to everybody, not just women, and I notice that especially in the section "with flustered feathers" you allude to Nigeria's military mis-rulers, and the visionless, greedy political elite. How passionate are you about these subjects or have they found their way into your book as, for want of a better expression, mandatory themes?
LS: Although I cannot say I was one of those activists who had to flee the country for dear life, or one who ever experienced a day in prison for 'illegal' activities, I was always quite politically aware. I think everyone was, because it was hard not to be. There was so much wrong with Nigeria that I think everyone was scarred, directly or indirectly. A friend of mine was telling me the other day that she still got the jitters whenever she chanced upon a truck full of soldiers. Being an undergraduate during the military era that ended about 5 years ago, it was not unusual to be stopped at the university gates and flogged by soldiers whenever they felt a student uprising was imminent. People are still suffering from the relics of those oppressive regimes. So much was written but not publishable. Now we can let rip, read and write all the poems we had to hide during those times.
I am rarely inspired to write about 'mandatory themes'. Stealing the title of a book of essays and speeches written by one of my greatest heroes, Steve Biko, I write what I like.
NA: What about the relationship between your ideological or artistic posturing and social responsibility then? Is it something that you think about?
LS: I believe everyone should operate with a sense of social responsibility. So much so that people who don't have anything positive to contribute to their environments annoy me. Everyone has something to give. I feel that writers especially owe it to their 'people' to sensitise, educate and enlighten them. Most importantly, where they can, they should speak for those who have no voice or who are hoarse and need someone to take over from them.
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