Bookshelf: How grief shaped my poems – Saddiq Dzukogi
Saddiq Dzukogi is an award-winning poet and author of ‘Images of Life and Canvas’ and ‘Sunbeams and Shadows’. His latest is a chapbook titled ‘Inside the Flower Room’, a work he describes as a manifestation of the desire to speak “my truth”. He recently won a scholarship to study at the University of Nebraska in the United States and was given the university’s most prestigious Othmer fellowship. In this interview, he talks about how the death of his daughter influences his writing, his new book and other issues. Excerpts:
Bookshelf: Two major good things and a sad event have happened to you within the space of a year. Let’s start with the good. One is the publishing of your chapbook, a collection of poems titled ‘Inside the Flower Room’. The second is your getting a scholarship to the University of Nebraska for your PhD. How do you feel about these developments?
Saddiq Dzukogi: Yes, in the space of five months a lot happened , the loss of my precious daughter Baha, and the publication of ‘Inside the Flower Room’ by the African Poetry Book Fund/ Akashic Books. I am at the centre on one side, this mammoth grief and on the other, this great glowing light, urging me to be grateful.
I completed my application to the University of Nebraska on December 5, 2017, seven days to the death of my beloved daughter. Immediately she died, I started to write poems, trying to keep her alive within the space that poetry affords. It hurt so much building up those spaces with lines of grief and memory, but it is something I recognized I must do to keep her memory bound to a universe that will keep her, in a way, full of breath in my body and in the body of the world.
Also, talking about the opportunity to study at PhD level at the university of Nebraska is a light in a heart darkened by grief. Four months into the acceptance, I am still in disbelief. I am grateful to the people who considered me worthy of this opportunity. Also, I was bestowed one of the university’s most prestigious fellowships, the Othmer fellowship. I cannot tell you how lucky and humbled all these make me feel.
Bookshelf: Before we go back to the other two events, let’s still talk about Nebraska. What did it take to get the scholarship and when and how are you planning to travel? Are you going with your family? Also, will you continue writing? Dzukogi: It was pretty simple. First, I had to write a seventeen-page critical essay on the poetics of two African Poets, Ladan Osman and Warsan Shire. I also submitted a resume and a sixteenpage worth of writing sample. I know I said it was simple but that was the first time in my life that I didn’t sleep one bit in the ten days leading to the application deadline.
About travelling, I am still in the planning stages. I intend to leave with my family on the 27th of July 2018, two days after my birthday. The flight ticket alone is about N1.5m for the three of
us. I am not a millionaire, obviously, so I am relying on the letters that I wrote to some individuals and the Niger State government, to bear fruit. I would be doing the doctoral studies in the English Department with a specialization in Women and Gender Studies. And of course, I will be writing. That’s what I came into the world to do.
Bookshelf: Congratulations on your new book ‘Inside the Flower Room’. What would you say triggered the theme you explored? Dzukogi: Thank you very much. As a trigger, I want to believe that it’s my constant hunger to interrogate the self and the environment that it inhabits. ‘Inside the Flower Room’ is a deeply personal set of poems collected to signify a coming out of sort of the emotions I have bounded up inside my body for so long. It is a manifestation of the desire to speak my truth.
Bookshelf: What is your truth? You have had several of your poems published on different platforms, works inspired by the demise of your daughter. Is this similar?
Dzukogi: My truth is that I have acknowledged the roles my body and mind allow me to engage and also to acknowledge my strength and weakness and recognize that there is no limitation that can stop me from existing in the world of my dreams.
And yes, I will love to think there is a similarity. To grieve just within the body is dangerous. It’s like a wound that shows up inside your body but when it’s outside you can see and address its need. What I am saying is that yes, the poems serve as outlets.
Bookshelf: Do you have a particular plan, as regards writing, when you get to Nebraska, say, perhaps, even across another genre? If yes, what are they?
Dzukogi: Yes, I have a plan to finish the two manuscripts I am writing and also maybe experiment with short stories or perhaps a hybrid genre. I am excited to see what the future holds for my writing.
Bookshelf: Do you have an online platform through which contributors could reach out with funds to aid your travel? Dzukogi: I do not have any online platform but if nothing shows up in a few days, I will set up a Crowd Funding profile to source for additional funding.