SPIC INTERVIEW WITH POET NANA ARHIN TSIWAH

HOSTs: SPIC Abigail and SPIC Naporo.

VENUE: SPIC Family Whatsapp Group.

DATE: Sunday, 26th of June, 2016.

TIME: 8:04pm to 10:24pm

SPIC: Gracious greetings to you all. Please it's interview time.

Simply signify with Smiley if you are active and Smileys ONLY till question time.

Thanks all. Soon we connect with my interviewee.

Network issue.

                           

SPIC: Welcome Nana Arhin Tsiwah, our guest for tonight.

Poet Nana (PN): Thanks for having me.

SPIC: Wow thanks Nana for honouring (our invitation).

To the great PENists in the house, our amazing guest is here with us now. My Co-host today is SPIC Naporo, he will come in, in due time.

Please kindly introduce yourself to the house.

PN: — Nana Arhin Tsiwah, an undergraduate student of the University of Cape Coast-Ghana reading Geography and Economics is a native of his ancestral home, Cape Coast.

SPIC: Wow, ancestral home!

Do you have a Pen name?, if yes, tell us how you came about it.

PN: —"The Village Thinker", my pen name came as a result of a conscious attachment to the spiritual interior of the village that birthed my navel. It is in the account of the African village life, it's spiritual semblance and linguistic rekindle that such pseudonym found its soul, spirit and fire.

SPIC: Oh my goodness! You blew my heart with that.

What type of Poet are you: written Poet, performance Poet, of spoken word Poet?

PN: — A Written and Performance Poet.

SPIC: Okay, which Poetry devices do you use often?

PN: — Metaphors are a towering sea.  Imagery reflect the soul of my Afro-ancestral spirituality. Similes are the mirrors of abundant adages.

SPIC: Wow!Is spoken words really Poetry?

PN: - Is spoken word really poetry? Well, what makes poetry and what makes spoken word is as discreet as one can think of. Since every child in one way or the other is a reflection of the parents, then if spoken word is a rhythmic branch of poetry then it stands to reason enough that it enjoys the privilege. However, in the strict African Poetics riddled in adages and afro-symbolisms, spoken word can't be associated in anyway whatever to the Afro-Poetics.

SPIC: Hmmmm!I see, tell us of awards and prizes you have won.

PN: - Golden Prize Winner, 2015 Doveslines Anthology Publication, Nigeria.

- 1st Place, 2016 World Union of Poets— Poetry Prize of Africa, Italy.

SPIC: Nice one.

PN: And a couple of other local ones like Best Writer for Undergraduate student of the University of Cape Coast.

SPIC:Okay, can you tell us the name of your favourite Poet and what you love about the Poet?

PN: — No poet in particular is favourited.  However, the works of Kofi Awoonor, Christopher Okigbo,  & Chinua Achebe thus inspire me. These are poets whose conceptual realisation of the need to project the African course and light in their works defies the so claimed purported Euro-literature. Their inclination to African cultural elements is a salt to nausea. The works of contemporary ones like Ehi'zogie, Kojo Poet, Kofi Acquah, Ajise Vincent, Fiifi Abaidoo, Sefa Anokye, Kwabena Agyare, Ayoola Goodness.... et al are a delight.

SPIC: What inspires you to write poems?

PN: — Homeland ( Africa and her existential elements of culture). The need to tell the true stories and history of African in the poetics.

SPIC: Hmmmm,

That is exactly what we need to tell the world with our ink.

What other genres do you write apart from Poetry?

PN: — Well, I take prominence in poetry to other writing genres. But sometimes when I am with my mortal self— out of the Afro-poetic shrine, I try writing stories, but even with that I prefer historical non-fiction.

SPIC: That's cool.

Do you make money from Poetry, if yes, how?

PN: — Making money from poetry? Hehehe (....lips part apart with smiles)...... I don't actually make money from poetry and money never been a condition for me to write. Despite publishing two volumes of poetry collections, I still share those books for free. The paramedics of African poetics tells us, to him that the gods and ancestors find favour; so must he share without expectation.

SPIC: Wow! You are amazing and rare.

Have you ever had your poem criticized before?, if yes, by who?, how?, when and where?

PN: — Hush.... Criticisms... Errmm.. I think my poems would be criticized for just one thing, it esoteric Africanism intoned symbolisms, else I haven't really found that my poems have undergone the pentagons of criticisms.

SPIC: Ohhh, so you are part of the lords of poetry.

Tell us your best moment ever as a poet.

PN: — I think poetry has more beautiful worst moments. Consequently, it is in when someone contacts me to help them to go through the rudiments of poetry writing. That is when I do realize my duty as a servant of the ancient tongue is merited.

SPIC: Hmmm duty calls.

When did you realize you wanted to be a poet(writer)?

PN: — I don't know when and at what particular point that I wanted to become a writer. I have known myself too well as a "liar and a tale-bearer". I have couple of critical essays on Africanism and Pan-Africanism lying somewhere on the internet and social media..... However, poetry came in very late... I think Poetess Amoafowa Sefa Cecilia and Fo Fovi were the oracle bards that I sought for mortal glee.

SPIC: Oh my goodness, you know yourself too well as "a liar".

What is the measure of success as a poet?

PN: — It is when I have been able to communicate the spiritual givings and wisdom of the ancestral spirits that wet my lips to the conscience of the people that have been made to read or listen to my poems. It is like a rain drop splashing on the gully of a hut— it melts the lips of the earth it touches!

SPIC: You and your ancestral spirits; please tell them to bless our writing soonest.... (Smiles)

How do you begin a poem?

PN: — I have said it somewhere before, African poetry is a spiritual convocation. It's a linguist's communion. It's an African riddle and proverb interwoven. As an African linguist, I stand as a vessel for the ancestors to whom poetry (awensem) belongs. In one of my poems, I wrote,

"poets are gods

falling from—

breast milk!"

Thus every poem I write comes from an ancestral fortification of which I am a mere servant.

SPIC: Wow, you nailed it.

What words do you have for Speaking Pen International Concept's (Group of Poets) that nominated you to be interviewed?

PN: — It's one humbling pleasure to be interviewed by such august family. Like the drops of tears, this journey you have began would be monumental to forestall a greater poetic prospect for other yearning ones alike.

SPIC: Wow, thanks.

Well my Co-host will take you on the last question and thereafter   you will kindly attend to some questions.

SPIC: Oh great, your ancient ancestral tongue is super.

Tell us, how will guide a beginner who wants to go into poetry writing?

PN: — Basically I don't expect anyone to look up to me. I think I have had the most addiction to spiritual poetry and literary masturbation than expected. However, for those who want to leave their ink in the pages of life and writing, first one must have a writing philosophy. Write with the basic elements that are within your environment. Be you and grow in you. Don't let uncircumcised systems or structures define your writing; define the odds! Be a little mad— that is the comeliness of art and the Poetics.

SPIC: Oh really?

What advice do you have for people and poets who look up to you?

PN: —Be you and grow in you. Don't let uncircumcised systems or structures define your writing; define the odds! Be a little mad— that is the comeliness of art and the Poetics.

SPIC: It's questions time and only three questions will be accepted.

SPIC Tolu Impact: Village thinker, I have been secretly following you, but what actually happened that you decided on quitting POETRY SHRINE. Share more with us.

I mean the reason behind the thoughts of leaving d poetry shrine.

SPIC Egonu Ebuka: @Village thinker I'm really thrilled by your choice of words. But I'm a bit uneasy about this your ancestral spirit thing. Could you explain further, please?

SPIC Paul Damies: As a beginner. Which book do you recommend to learn basic poet writing?

SPIC: Please our guest is on the laps of network.

SPIC Winlade: Please could you share one of your poem on this group page?

PN: Pilolo

(A Hum for Homeland)

I have become a spider

of many untold

woven stories.

I hold an untamed tongue

of multiple riddles

& dew fermented

proverbs.

I am an Island of Owuo,

death

but why has esuo Tano

set his confluence

in the hymen of my

virginity?

I wandered on the

tongue of starved deserts

but finding no place to bury

my deceased daughter,

I hid her in the dungeon

of the oily thighs of the sky.

 . . .    She is a dead pond

  an optician's song

    lying idle in the eyes

         of a Sunday dying child. 

Pilolo,

An ancient tongue kisses

the lips of the soft tip

of a peeled air.

"Parables are words

couched in masculine

sweat", I am told

but are we not migrant birds

summoned before Onyankopon's

Saturday toiling bells? 

My love, 

(me dɔ wiase)

is it true that in your eyes

are laid the tombstones

I shall be buried in, 

should Owia and thunder

wilt in the spirit trees of

our mother's shadow?

Pilolo,

Why is Africa on

a lonely afternoon

sojourn?

Why are the daughters

of our homeland broken

into paradox of tears?

My son, 

this world is a place

of idle pepper planters

who querry the moon

& fasten the carcass of Sebɔ

to the waist of abandoned

mushrooms. 

So my child, 

watch where you set

your naked buttocks, 

for every log that is soaked

with the breast milk of dew, 

holds the rill of potent

erosion.

#TheVillageThinker

@SirAbeikuO'.... I decided to quit the Poetry Shrine because my family was on me demanding that I focus on my tertiary education for now. Again, I wanted to be a little separated from the madness..... Heheh.

@Paul....  Personally, I won't recommend any book to anyone on poetry. First a a beginner, you must define your own writing philosophy. There is usually on peculiar thing as writers and poets we ignore as we forge words and weave letters of plate.  "The Writer's Philosophy", I define it as a syndrome mirrored into a defined perspective of the one writing. With this, one identity’s particular theme of interest and profundity to write on. It is within this same line of writing that the writer/poet accumulates and draws his inspiration and musings from to write on specification.

If for instance, your interest is on love and it's relatives of sentimentalism and romanticism, you dabble deeper into all its shades. You stick to writing on it. You do most of your readings based on that specification. You draw inspiration from daily life of people in that line of choice.

For instance, I have published three volumes of poetry collections: Half Our Memories and other poems, Dead Epistles & Palm Leaves within this short period of being poetry. The success is attributed to the fact that I write solely or principally on Africanism/Pan Africanism. In Africanism/Pan Africanism, I draw much inspiration from the likes of Achebe, Awoonor, Brew, Diop, Okigbo et al

As I have indicated, choose a particular area or theme of interest where you can harness your natural creativeness best and then begin to write from therein. This would give you and your works a unique identity in that would see you into a brand for greater prospects.

SPIC: Wow, explicit responses.

Please two more question to good bye our poet.

PN: @Egonebuka... "Ancestral Spirit" I speak here of is what is deemed in the Greek writing apotheosis as "muse". In Africa, our ancestors' spirits take on the course of our existence. We are basically tuned to the right writing by their wisdom and cultural light.

SPIC Oluwaseyi Katoon: From the poem you graciously shared and following your words studiously, I noticed a deep root in culture and the use of your dialect... Do you ever feel the conviction that you may mislead your readers from the message intended due to lack of understanding of your tongue?

PN: @Oluwaseyi...  Not at all, I try at best to make the theme work in the lines. The understanding doesn't lie the mixed dialect but in the elements that have been used to weave the poem. The local language is to tell the out-of-Africa that our language is also an important frame for our writing.

SPIC Oluwaseyi Katoon: I don't mean to drag it on, point well taken, but we write more for a heterogeneous mix of readers, the literate and the not so literate that won't see these aforementioned elements and also the non African's too.

I stand on my existing question.

PN: @Oluwaseyi....  Point of correction, I don't write for the non-African. Just as Shakespeare never wrote for the African, I don't equally write for the non-African. You see, the beauty of my poems does not even lie in understanding. They are conscious and would need deeper reflections to absorb it's elementaries. That is why I said, they are Afro-proverbial and ideological.

SPIC: It appears we have exhausted our questions.

Mr Nana Arhin Tsiwah, what are your last words for the house?

                                  

SPIC: Wow, it's being nice having Poet Nana around tonight.

PN: Good to have been here with you guys. I still remain a humble village servant.

SPIC: We have come to the end of the interview, good night to our guest, Nana Arhin Tsiwah, SPIC Abigail, and to all members who were active and still active. Good night ladies and gentlemen.

SPIC: To all my SPIC FAMILY I say I love you all and I cherish your corporation. Good night all.

Bye,bye, bye. 

Compiled by: SPIC AbdulHafeez T. Oyewole and SPIC Vasily Jeff of SPIC Compilation and Editing Unit.