Ikeogu Oke is the winner of 2017 NLNG-sponsored Nigerian Prize for Literature. With many books on poetry and prose to his credit, the
Abuja-based poet in this interview with IBRAHIM RAMALAN discusses his epic poetry book: ‘Heresiad’ that won him the NLNG prize as well as his reaction to criticisms of the prize.
You are the moment as far as the NLNG Literature Prize is concerned and you have stepped into the millionaires’ club. Would you say the prize has motivated you?
I wish I knew what you mean by my being the man of the moment or steeping into the millionaires’ club. I am simply someone who has chosen to and would like to continue to immerse himself in a life dominated by the love of poetry, literature generally, and the need to create and enjoy it.
Many people are in the millionaires’ club without having won the NLNG Prize. They joined the club, as it were, without winning the prize. And I don’t see why I couldn’t have been one of them, despite what seems the impression in our country that to be a poet or writer is to enter into a covenant with poverty, an impression that even some of our poets and writers seem to have internalised.
Besides, I find the rather unhealthy interest in the prize money troubling, especially when it comes from fellow poets, writers and journalists, who should be emphasizing the literary merit or lack thereof of the winning entry, and driving discussion about literature in the aftermath of the award.
Perhaps this shows how much re-orientation needs to be done about how people perceive the prize, rather as a lottery than a prize for literary creativity given for a specific book, which should generate critical rather than pecuniary interest in the winning entry for which the author became the recipient of the prize.
The Heresiad was published early this year. How would you convince us that you don’t belong to same bandwagon of those that hurriedly publish books targeting a prize and did you have NLNG in mind while putting your book together?
I started writing The Heresiad in 1989 and completed it in 2016. That’s 27 years’ work, starting long before the NLNG Prize was introduced and continuing long afterwards.
And I believe reading the book would convince anyone that it was not “hurriedly put down” to target the prize.
Your first outing as an author could be traced to 2002 when you published Where I was Born and you hadn’t received big accolade. What kept you motivated over these years?
The main reason I write is because I enjoy writing, “for the love of it”, to return to that my favourite phrase by Seamus Heaney. With such a personal motivation you don’t get demoralised by having not received any accolade. You keep going because you love and enjoy what you do.
Poetry competition is always fierce and interesting. When you were shortlisted alongside two other well-known poets, what were your thoughts about your chances?
I was not unfamiliar with Professor Tanure Ojaide and Ogaga Ifowodo and their work. I actually wrote a poem, “Apologia”, around 1991, in response to Ojaide’s The Fate of Vultures. It was published in my first collection, Where I was Born.
In fact, I have known both poets for about 20 years and I did not consider myself an obscure or less capable poet in comparison, having started publishing poetry internationally, for which I was paid, since 1988, but with a rather strong disinclination to self-publicity.
I never saw myself as an underdog in the shortlist. I never thought my entry could not win, considering its quality and one of the rules of the entry that the prize would be awarded on the basis of merit. The judges’ decision actually vindicated my expectation.
But being human I was occasionally anxious about the decision before it was announced, since I knew it could have gone in a different direction given the subjectivity of literary tastes.
According to the Jury’s report, one of the things that gave your book an edge was your manipulation of language and philosophy in your style that reminded them of the writings of great Greek writers of Homeric and Hellenistic periods. Were you influenced by the writers of that period?
I was. I specifically invoke Homer and Virgil and mention Pindar and Ennuis, all with gratitude, in The Heresiad.
The judges also revealed that your book and Tanure Ojaide’s ‘Songs of Myself: Quartet’ ran head to head in terms of content and style. Would it be right to say that you narrowly escaped the tie?
I don’t think it was a narrow escape if they applied other criteria of aesthetics that led to breaking of the tie and their considering me deserving of being the sole recipient of the prize. I think it actually means the decision process became more rigorous out of necessity in order to produce the best possible result.
The Heresiad explores freedom and the inner workings of society generally. What other themes do you have as a writer and do you consider yourself a politically committed writer?
The themes one could have as a writer could be infinite. And those two are just a few of the lot The Heresiad explores, including world peace, religious tolerance, forgiveness, intellectual and creative liberty, etc.
I consider myself, somewhat a politically motivated writer. The Heresiad even contains political lines about such leaders as the late Thomas Sankara and General Sani Abacha, and the politics of Anambra state.
How would you react to calls that the prize money be split into three and even out rightly cancelled?
I find both calls strange, even from a purely developmental perspective. I wonder the sense that people who should be canvassing for support for activities in their vocation would be calling for the balkanisation or scrapping of such support that is already in existence.
And yet they expect to be taken seriously when they complain that their vocation hardly gets support from government and private organisations.
Why would anyone expect outside help to be willing to work for them while aware that they are openly working against their interests?
And regarding splitting the prize money in three, it is common knowledge the world over that it is those who institute a prize that determine how to compose or dispense the prize money, whether to one winner or several.
But I have also realised that some of those arguing for splitting the prize are involved in endeavours in the alternative areas they want some of the prize money channelled into.
So, I am afraid that the call is motivated by self-interest. I encourage such people to try and convince other institutions to establish prizes in those areas they believe there should also be prizes.
I think it should be a case of the more prizes for those in the literary vocation and the bigger the purse for such prizes the better. It is more desirable to expand than to shrink. Better to engender growth than precipitate contraction.
How do you juggle between writing and your job?
I am a full-time writer in the sense that every other thing I do besides writing is linked to writing. It is a challenging life and requires a lot of hard work.
But I enjoy it and try to make the most of it. I believe any of our endeavours that must bear good fruit sustainably requires disciplined engagement and dedication, and some luck, the favour of Providence.
I also love family life besides the creative. Sometimes time is not enough in a 24-hour day to accomplish one’s daily tasks between the creative, the intellectual, the entrepreneurial and the quotidian. But one has to manage one’s time scrupulously.
Sir, do you have a favourite among Nigerian poets?
Yes, Niyi Osundare. As I said in a different interview, his poetry is accessible, unpretentious, sage, and an engaging vehicle for the three main tendencies of commitment: social, cultural and political. But I forgot to add moral, the fourth tendency.
