This edition of PIN Literary Interviews (PLI) features an engaging dialogue between Nigerian writer, Sa’id Sa’ad and Semilore Kilaso who, as the moderator, draws her guest into a conversation revolving around multilingualism, poetry, poetry promotions, social media, PIN, and other Nigerian writing communities.
Sa’id Sa’ad is a Nigerian writer from Maiduguri. He is the co-author of the poetry collection ReUnion (Malthouse Press, 2021). He won the Peace Panel Short Story Prize 2018 and the NFC Essay Prize 2018. His works ranging from Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry have appeared in Bookends Review, Kalahari Review, Ibua Journal, Afritondo, Nzuri Journal, Afreecan Reed and elsewhere. His radio drama The Breadwinner was translated into three languages and was aired in four Sub-Saharan African Countries. Whereas, his other radio dramas Halima’s Nut and On Kalumdari Hill were aired four radio stations in Nigeria and one each in Cameroon (Koussari), Niger Republic (Diffa) and Chad. The Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka commended ‘his passion’ for writing, whereas, in an interview, the 2018 Nigeria Prize for Literature Winner (NLNG) Soji Cole described him as ‘a highly intelligent writer’.
Semilore Kilaso: Thank you very much for accepting my invitation for this interview. There is a lot to unpack from your bio. Kindly tell me about your life outside the literary space, and how it influences your work as a writer.
Sa’id Sa’ad: Well, my life outside the literary space is similar to the lives of ordinary Nigerians full of fire inside of them and hope, at least small hope. However, growing up I suppose there are collective experiences and events that did well in influencing my becoming. It is easy for me to say that at teenage age I had a circle of friends of course from multiple religions and ethnicity, where we sat at night and told ourselves stories and folktales we had learnt from our own houses. That is one thing. But it is also true that at that age whenever there is something about writing, friends will always come to me: like writing love letters to their girlfriends, like writing a plan for a small party during festive periods and so on. These I believe were all the packages that shaped my writing. Another crucial thing was that growing up, my father converted our dining into a home library and stacked thousands of books in it, though most of the books were Arabic books with few English books, but I believe that was an early unconscious event that taught me that, in as much as food is essential, learning too is highly important.
SK: Interesting. Tell me about the beauty of multilingualism and how you bring it to play in your writings.
Sa’id: There is beauty in multilingualism. There is this inner gratification one feels when they connect with other languages especially ‘different languages’. Although I speak Hausa as a native language and have little Arabic on the surface of my tongue, but I only write in English. Writing requires richness in language and for me, I found that more in English. However, I love languages and I believe my writings are combinations of fragments of different languages. Perhaps maybe not via introducing the raw languages into my art, but at least by bringing something mild from the language or the language speakers. Essentially, there is something to pick in every language and a writer is always in scout of resources.
SK: When was your first encounter with poetry, and has your idea of what poetry is changed since you began writing?
Sa’id: My writing is a transformation of different genres. My first experience with writing was around age 12 when I plagiarized — of course from different sources, and wrote this very horrible book I titled History of Olympic Games is handwritten. Then I didn’t even know what being a writer means. At around age 18, I started writing nonfiction works, and then the next year to horrible fiction and then the next year, poetry. I would say poetry didn’t come to me as first love. It came after fiction and nonfiction and of course, I stumbled upon it while trying to express my feelings to someone. However, over time I got to realize that I could do more with poetry than describing how beautiful a lady is, of course, something meaningful as putting myself in a jar and sipping me till the end. So if there is any change, it is that.
SK: What kind of questions are you exploring in your poetry? How would you describe poetry in relation to your style?
Sa’id: I suppose my poetry isn’t often about questioning as other poets will see theirs, for me my poems are usually a hideout, a hollow kind of escape. It’s basically me trying to escape from something or in something— past, present or future. My poetry style is the present mannerism of expressing what I want to express. So, no shackles, I just speak on the page. And, I enjoy the freedom.
SK: Tell me about being a performance poet.
Sa’id: My becoming as a performance poet was influenced by Dike Chukwumerije. It was around 2017 or 2018, when he did his Made In Nigeria (MIN) poetry event in Maiduguri, and with the way he found us at that time, he was very kind to have gone back after the event and still came back after some months just to teach us the art of spoken word poetry. Initially, I was only a page poet, and when he came and did his magic, I appreciated performance poetry since then. And more to just appreciating performance poetry, there is this simplicity in the art of Dike Chukwumerije, which has so much influenced my art. For me, if ordinary people cannot relate to my art then I feel I have failed in conveying the art. So that too, did well with my performance poetry. Unlike how many poets perceive it to be, I believe art shouldn’t have any parameter to measure which art is more organic or more artistic than the other. Page poetry is an art, spoken word is an art. Both are different. And none is better than the other.
SK: What influence does living in Nigeria have on your writing. Do you find yourself gravitating towards new themes as we go through this intense period of insecurity and economic depression?
Sa’id: Well, living in Nigeria as a writer, just similar to a Somalian writer living in Somalia or an American writer living in America, the society we live in and our lifestyles influence our writing. It’s a continuous process, the unfolding events, the past and the future are all in a way shaping what we produce. So, for me, there is no themed gravitation in my arts, because I give myself this little freedom of expressing my art in a way that best suits how it should be, at least for me. If I said I would write about every trending issue in Nigeria, I am sure these issues will kill me before I finish penning them down. So, I gently dip my feet in the water and do what I can.
SK: One of your bio I have come across says “he sips tea, travels and receives tons of rejection letters.” How do you deal with rejection?
Sa’id: Wow, rejections! rejections! Rejections! I think rejection for a writer is a bitter medication pill that every writer has to take to be well. I wish I had a structured and beautifully designed way of managing rejections, but no. I just open my arms and collect them like bullets. But most importantly, unlike how I used to be, I try to read the ‘unfortunately’ with a smile. Maybe I now developed the thick skin that people often talk about.
SK: What are the advantages of writing communities and engaging Social Media as a tool for the promotion of literary art?
Sa’id: Writing communities makes creatives sane, especially at their early stages. When you discover that you are not alone in what you are doing, the pain is less. For social media and the internet, I think the best advice I would give any creative person is to adopt technology in every single thing they do. Because with the present global trend, we must leverage technology.
SK: What Nigerian poet(s) do you continually revisit their works?
Sa’id: Nigerian poets, I believe I am a consumer of African literature. I remembered a friend, Babangida Aliyu, posting me recently on their social media handle and jokingly saying, “Sa’id Sa’ad should be a professor of African literature.” Perhaps that was a joke, but it was influenced by how much he knows me to consume African Literature. And funny enough, I have never had a favourite author or poet, I literary consume everyone and everything Gabriel Okara, Ben Okri, Niyi Osundare, and a lot of others.
SK: In August you facilitated a poetry workshop via PIN FACEBOOK GROUP. How was it?
Sa’id: PIN poetry workshop was actually my first time facilitating a strict poetry session like that, thanks to Shehu Mubarak. It was quite an experience because I believe poetry is something you can’t teach someone, but can only give people where they find the fragments of resources they need to use to build their art. And that was what we did, it was an interesting session that had allowed me to wander as much as I needed to. Really interesting!
SK: Poetry appreciation is gaining ground in Nigeria. What, in your opinion, is the place of poetry as a genre of literature in Nigeria? What future? What opportunities for poets?
Sa’id: Poetry as universal as it used to be, has gained a beautiful ground in Nigeria. That’s why whenever I see other poets complaining bitterly about how ‘young poets were quick to give themselves the titles’ I often try to make them understand the immense trooping of young people into the art is healthy. Of course, with them trooping into the art will mean a lot of people are gaining more interest and are beginning to appreciate poetry. And that’s what we want, for me, I am not just writing poetry for poets, I am writing poetry for everyone. With Nigeria, I can say, yes, poetry is on the cliff, soon it will fly high.
SK: What’s your opinion about Poets in Nigeria as a vanguard of poetry renaissance in Nigeria?
Sa’id: I have said this during the PIN Anniversary last year, and I would say it again, PIN is one of the greatest “good” that has happened to young and growing poets in the country. If numbers matter, then PIN is the only poetic platform that has brought together this great number of poets under one roof. So if there is anything of change or growth for poetry, PIN got it for poets, especially growing ones.
SK: Thank you for your time Sa’id. Kindly leave us with your poem.
Sa’id: Thank you very much. I would leave you with this poem Much Alike:
One day,
I woke up with the moon in my eyes,
glasses of smiles to map which way my window blinds will face.
When I opened my chest and read
the scriptures written on it; I had wanted to wake my mother from her sleep and tell her that
i have found a wallpaper for my laptop.
For the many times I have tried to spell your name
on water, Illhaam, I failed to remember the nightmare that awaits
a man who picks a colourful flower and watch it dry.
If you were a bar of chocolate – sweet, paint
my whole skin brown; maybe that would tell me that grandmother
knew you were coming, when she built her hut with mud.
If you were an ice-cream, no doubt,
these cool hands are testimony of how long it could
take a child to hold a sweet ice in the dark. Coldness does not kill a man.
How can I lie to you, Illham; that
your name do not keep me awake?
that it is not the Lionel Richie I sing in my sleep with a ‘Hello!’
How could I tell you that when Maya Angelou looked into my eyes and said;
‘You were the image of everything
that caused me to sing,’ she meant you?
& that if she would come back again she would look at us and say,
‘You look so much alike. Much alike.’
Note: Poem first appeared in The Shallow Tales Review – https://theshallowtalesreview.com.ng/much-alike/