Performance poet, Tega Cross: The best stage is in the heart of my listeners

Gladys Oghenetega Bivbere is a performance poet with stage name ‘Tega Cross’. She has a degree in English and Literature and also works as a teacher and a voiceover artist.

Tega Cross in this interview with Daily Trust YOUTHVILLE said she started poetry in 2009.

“I started off as a page poet with zero knowledge of the spoken word poetry in Nigeria. My love for stage performance was ignited during my secondary school days.”

She said her literature teacher encouraged her to perform one of her works on stage during her school’s graduation ceremony in 2011.

“So I was elbows-deep into page poetry before I discovered that page could be relived on stage”, she explains.

On her style, she said “My style of poetry thrives mostly on metaphors and imagery. For my style of performance, I prefer a smooth jazzy blend of voice and instrumentals.”

She added that her poems address “existential subjects like God, emotions and our experiences as people-especially as women”.

On participating in competitions, Tega said “competitions really do help to boost a writer’s profile but sometimes their results do not capture entirely a writer’s true ability.”

The poet who got a consolation winner Prize for a Korea-Nigeria Prize for Poetry and came in finalist in ‘War of Words’ slam poetry organized by Halloway Olulu as well as ‘ALITFEST19’ slam says her motivation behind slamming was “to ‘ginger’ myself to write more slam poems and open myself up to new people and experiences.”

Slamming or Slam is a type of poetry competition where people read their poems usually without music or props. The poems are scored by randomly selected judges who are not necessarily arts pundits.

On how she fared when she entered for the Brunel Prize for Poetry Tega said “my work didn’t cross pass the editor’s desk”.

She is however not discouraged as she hopes to put in more work and make her writing better “The fact that my poems didn’t run the mile shows that there’s more work to be done”.

Being a performance poet entails travelling a lot and this is a challenge for Tega Cross who teaches Literature in a secondary school. Sometimes poetry event schedules clash with school sessions; but for her, Art pays the bills.

“It all depends on the value that one places on oneself and one’s art. When I say value, I mean “value” in the realistic sense because some artists go over the board to demand a value that cannot be equated to the works that they produce and in the end they say ‘Art does not pay the bills’.”

Tega Cross hopes to make a name on the world stage by winning The Nobel Prize For Literature, The Orange Prize For Fiction and The Brunel Prize For Poetry among others. “I occasionally daydream about these prizes with my best friend,

Ebuka”.

What stage is she looking to perform at? “My covetousness would have led me to say, “The White House” or “Aso Rock” or “In a gathering where it seems like the whole world is watching” but my doppelganger tells me, the best state there is, is in the heart of my listeners”.

She remembers lines and lines of poems by reading over and over again. She said “as I write it sticks but what I do most days is that I read my poems to myself over and over and they become a part of me.”

Some of her works include “You Are Your Mother’s Daughter”, “Rubrics of Love Making” and “Song of Ecstasy”.

She is currently compiling a collection of short stories.

Tega Cross comes across as quiet and reserved but lights up when she is on stage, this transformation is always an amazing experience to watch.