A Poet as a Patriot and a Sage: A Conversation with Ayeyemi Taofeek (Aswagaawy)
Interviewer: Mazeed Mukhtar Oyeleye
Taofeek “Aswagaawy” Ayeyemi is a Nigerian lawyer, writer and author of five chapbooks including “Dust and Rust” (Buttonhook Press, California 2022), “Tongueless Secrets” (Ethel Press, 2021) and a collection “Aubade at Night or Serenade in the Morning” (Flowersong Press, Texas 2021). A 2021 BotN and Pushcart Prize Nominee, his haiku works have appeared in Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Akitsu Quarterly, Cattails, Acorn, Hedgerow, The Mamba, the QuillS, Fireflies’ Light, Haibun Today, contemporary haibun online, Prune Juice, Failed Haiku, Eucalypt, Chrysanthemums, Seashores and elsewhere. His poem have appeared in CV 2, Lucent Dreaming, Up-the-Staircase Quarterly, FERAL, ARTmosterrific, Banyan Review, the QuillS and elsewhere. He won the 2021 Loft Books Flash Fiction Competition with his haibun “Banga”, 2nd Place in 2021 Porter House Review Poetry Contest, 2020 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize, and Honorable Mention in 2021 Ito En Oi Ochai Shin-Haiku Contest, and 2021 Oku-no-hosomichi Soka Matsubara Haiku Contest among others. He is @aswagaawy on Twitter.
In this conversation, Taofeek leads Mazeed in an exegesis of his poetry journey, in which they discuss his poetry collections, Aubade at Night or Serenade in The Morning, Dust and Rust, and Tongueless Secrets.
Mazeed: Many thanks for this opportunity. It’s a pleasure conversing with you again.
Taofeek: I’m more than pleased. Thanks
Mazeed: Seems like ages since our last conversation. When was that? 2020?
Taofeek: I think it was 2019. Perhaps late 2019. Almost 3 years ago, if my brain serves me right
Mazeed: Oh! Dear!
And during the conversation, you harbingered the release of your collections; Tongueless Secrets, a chapbook (Ethel Press, Philadelphia, US, 2021) and Aubade at Night or Serenade in the Morning, a full-length book (Flowersong Press, Texas, US, 2021)
Now, they’re out in the open for all and sundry to enjoy.
Congratulations!!!
Taofeek: Yes, thanks so much. Funnily, I mentioned 5 chapbooks. They are all now published. Two of them as “Aubade at Night or Serenade in the Morning.” And yes, that’s why “Aubade at Night or Serenade in the Morning” is in two parts. Another chapbook I mentioned is Tongueless Secrets. The other two chapbooks are haiku related, one Across the Full Moon (The Mamba Press, Ghana, 2021) and the other Dust and Rust (Buttonhook Press, California, 2022).
Mazeed: Woah! That’s some heavy lifting there.
Taofeek: It is. I didn’t imagine they will all turn out that beautiful and get published as fast as they were.
Mazeed: Yeah, that’s every creative’s fear. I guess.
Taofeek: You guessed right
Mazeed: I have read Tongueless Secrets and Aubade at Night or Serenade in the Morning, and I must confess that they are beaus. I have a baggage of impatient questions to unleash. But before I roll out my questions, tell me something about you that’s not on your bio.
Taofeek: Hmm, I’m a twin and the lastborn of my family. I’m also a lover of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and find joy in chanting his praise, in Arabic poetry. Oftentimes, poems of Sheikh Ibrahim Niyas. I’m currently based out in Abeokuta, lawyering, writing and working on my dreams.
Mazeed: Hmm. These are interesting revelations, Taofeek. Who could have guessed that you are a twin? (laughs)
Let’s get right into it, shall we? In Aubade at Night or Serenade in the Morning, you write “I want to look myself in the mirror and see a god”. With everything that has happened to you in the last few years; cue the success of your writing and everything else, would you agree if I say that God has granted your wish?
Taofeek: Hmm. Not in every way now, but to totally disagree is to be ungrateful. Being a god and my definition of it as slightly spelt out in the cited poem is also a dream I’m working on. I must say that a number of people speak about me as if I’m a god, one special human. But then, I just want to make people smile and spread joy and happiness among humans. Even as the resources are not completely at hand, I want to daily do so with the little at my disposal. I must tell you, it gives me joy seeing people smile or feel contented from my action and inaction. In the poem, I have some lines that read:
i just want to become a salt in tasteless foods /
i want to become the yolk in forgotten egg.
That’s the dream, and I am becoming. Although not fully formed yet.
Mazeed: This is inspiring!
Let’s talk about your writing haiku. When enthusiasts of poetry think about the art, and especially haiku, your name looms on their tongues. I’m sure the Japanese would have come for you if not for your mixed feelings concerning moving abroad which you expressed in one of your poems in Aubade… where you say you “like to think leaving this country is like walking out of a pond into a creek”. You should be grateful to this feeling, you know? (laughs)
I think you should add it to your bio
* — a god, of haiku, of poetry.
“If I return to God tomorrow, I can boldly say I lived my dream.” — Taofeek
Taofeek: (laughs) Coincidentally, I participated in a Conference of Haiku Practitioners just this morning where I represented Africa as a Region, on the recommendation of Sir Adjei Agyei-Baah, a leading African haiku poet. The Conference is called “Haiku Down Here Under” where we discussed how haiku fairs in our various regions. That’s an aside, but it baffles one that we are like gold dwelling in the mud of this country or continent that goes abroad to get refined. Who doesn’t want to be refined? I only live by the principle that I will live my dream here and now, because I don’t know what tomorrow brings. If I return to God tomorrow, I can boldly say I lived my dream. And if I live beyond tomorrow, I won’t stop exploring opportunities to live my dream even in a better way. And that’s what a community reading of the above lines you cited implies.
Mazeed: Wow! Congratulations on the recognition! This goes to show just how right I am. By the way, I think your philosophy of life, accomplishment and death is soothing, worthy of adoption.
And yeah! The brain drain that has been rocking this nation of late is alarming
Taofeek: It is. The outflow is like people are actually escaping the prison. May they find the greener pastures they seek. May we all do. May the country too get better.
Mazeed: Amen, may God see us bounce back to the golden days
I agree with you(r) closing lines in ‘Aperture’, of Tongueless Secrets, that “we have to stand out (of our comfort zone) for the world to see we are really outstanding” and conclude that a Haiku ‘god’ like yourself authoring free verse poetry collections is what you captured with “this is how a poet leaves his chrysalis & perch on a chrysanthemum” in ‘demystification of grief, or, the augury of god is good all the time’. This is my perspective and a testament to your enviable mastery of an array of poetry forms. When we spoke about these titles when they were forthcoming, I thought they were Haiku-related collections like Dust and Rust, their younger sibling, but you wowed me and, definitely, many others.
Please walk me through your mind. How do you feel after pulling this off?
“Self-publishing is fine, but it is you convincing the world about you. But traditional publishing is others saying I believe in this writer and ready to spend my hard-earned money on him.” — Taofeek
Taofeek: The acceptance emails to publish “Tongueless Secrets” and “Aubade at Night or Serenade in the Morning” came in 2020. The former before my father’s death and the latter when I was mourning his death. They were consoling, they were dreams came true. 2015 when I started poetry, I wanted to be a published author but didn’t envisage being taken by foreign publishers, not as soon as five years later. Self-publishing is fine, but it is you convincing the world about you. But traditional publishing as in the case of these books is others saying I believe in this writer and ready to spend my hard-earned money on him. It’s more convincing, especially when it comes from foreigners. So, it felt really awesome and wonderful, I too did. Both were published the same year, April and August respectively. And it gave me confidence that I can do more wonders.
This reminds me, our last conversation was in 2020, not 2019 as I earlier mentioned. You would’ve thought they were haiku because I was mostly known for that form that year. It felt like I abandoned the mainstream poetry since 2019 for haiku. Yeah, I was published in up to 30 haiku journals with more than 100 haiku works in 2019 alone.
Mazeed: Yeah, yeah. I completely did. Who wouldn’t have?
And yes again, I couldn’t agree more on the thirst for validation as creatives. There’s a limit to how far a great self-esteem can push one if there’s little to no external force. I am happy for you.
Speaking of validations, Dust & Rust is the is the first book of haibun to have come out of Africa. This says a lot, and I wonder how you feel about that.
Taofeek: Yes, I have pride in holding that honour, especially as the work is a mirror of a typical Yorùbá home, Nigerian home and African at large. And I hope more books of that form comes from me and other Africans. Haibun is a beautiful form of art that I can’t leave for it other forms. The fact that I can spice it with African ideas is an icing on the cake for me. I should add here two reviews of the haibun chapbook I'm excited for, one from IRIS (a Croatian journal) and the other from FROGPOND (one of world’s leading Haiku journals in America). It was great to learn what they thought about this chapbook that was close to home.
Mazeed: Nothing beats learning that even people out there can connect to your personal story. Quick question on that, are you the persona of your poems you use “I” in?
Taofeek: Not in every one of them, but in about 98%. If I’m not referring to myself, I might have likely quoted someone, or be speaking through a general voice.
Mazeed: Hmm, that’s an element that makes the collections gripping, especially when one reads the poems aloud. It’s like we’re inheriting the personae.
Taofeek: Sometimes I also use “You” to shield myself. Whereas, it’s about me. Take Aubade at Night or Serenade in the Morning for example, I call the first part of the chapbook, national poems, while the second part, personal poems.
Mazeed: Oh! That’s an interesting revelation.
And a gateway to the next question:
The first part of your collection, ‘Aubade at Night or Serenade in the Morning’, portrays you in many lights the shade of a patriot and a global citizen. I salute your courage, as much as I couldn’t agree more with your lines that say, “silence is dangerous; it casts a noise-proof veil against the voices of the crying & the dying”, I feel you putting the collective before the reflective is inspiring: You bemoan everything that is wrong with this country; electoral malpractices that bless us with bad and insensitive leadership and failed manifesto, which enable a corrupt judiciary and give rise to carnage, epileptic power supply, oil spillage, police brutality, unemployment and the resulting poverty and hunger, all of which echo your line in ‘the thing about this country’, “run/ this country is a running horse/”, and rationalise brain drain like your lines in ‘leaf by leaf, unroofing our wormwood’, “when our makkah refuses to grow sweeties and fruities, shall we not become muhammad and take our seeds to medina?” Take it from me that this collection is your wish in poem 13, “[i want this poem to fight like a leopard]” coming true for it is a pack of claws scratching our conscience. I can wager that it’ll make bad leaders ask themselves how they “enjoy crystals of the day & escape darkness of the night?”
So, tell me. If the president were to read this collection and, hopefully, grasp it, what is the first claw of thought you want to see in his chest?
Taofeek: That he has failed us. And woefully so. That he’s not the honourable man he painted himself as. A honourable “Sai Baba” would’ve resigned. The Qur’an, Chapter 10, verse 14 reads “Then We made you successors in the land after them so that We may observe how you will do.” The immediate past government was painted bad, to my agreement. But God put Sai Baba there, and he did worse. Among other poems, the poem “a land slipping into evanescence” points sharper claws at him. And a line comes to mind “the only thing that goes green is his vigour.”
Mazeed: Hmm. I was going to talk about his vigour but now that you’ve mentioned it. We’ll move on.
Taofeek: By that line I mean he was sick, like the country, at the beginning of his tenure. Unfortunately, he got better on the country’s fund, but the country didn’t get better, only worse.
Mazeed: Yes, I understand the line I was going to make a joke about it, actually.
My favourite poem across both collections is ‘ember’: October is under way, but your portrait of September was the true picture of mine. Heck! September didn’t carry any guns but it harvested produce it didn’t plant in my life, and in alarming succession, but as you say in i want this poem to fight like a leopard, “we’ve not lived enough to become dead” from material losses.
Which poem is your favourite? Why?
Taofeek: So sorry to hear that. I hope you find solace.
I do not have a favourite, it’s hard to choose. They all speak to me in their own personal way, they touch me with their different private fires. But I will like to talk about the poem “object in the mirror are closer than they appear.” Sometimes I look at our struggles in life and how it all ends in the nothingness of death. As a Muslim, I believe in the hereafter, the Last Day, the Paradise and the Hell. But sometimes I just wished someone goes and return to report how death feels on human flesh and how the righteousness we do here on earth gives a feel of wonder. The poem mirrors my only question that keeps coming about the ephemeral nature of life. How we are ignorant of tomorrow. And how we should live our best, notwithstanding. I choose this poem, at this moment, because of how creativity played for me when I conceived the idea of writing a poem using that phrase as a title, what is often inscribed on the mirror of vehicles.
Mazeed: I’d have been faced with the same indecision if this embers didn’t tell me “you’re living a poem”. Haha! Again, I say your philosophy of life, death and everything between and beyond is beautiful
Taofeek: Glad to know. Thank you
Mazeed: Reversal or ‘going back to the good old days’ is a common theme with contemporary Nigerian poets I’ve read, including you: In ‘a list of broken things’ and ‘once upon a future’, you decry the transition of society, thanks to civilisation and the alarming normalisation of ills in our clime: ‘Although, I have not seen many years, I also long for the good old days.’
What is your idea of a sane Nigerian society and what impact do you want your collections to spur in this respect?
‘I want Tongueless Secrets to be a map through life, for those seeking meaning in it and of it.” — Taofeek
Taofeek: The quick answer is in the poem “the world our tears ask for” where I write that idea of a sane Nigerian society from right to left. This is not to suggest that it is impossible, but simply means when we begin to do things right, we’ll be left with nothing but what we dream for. A line reads:
our colouring where world a”
turtleneck black a in dressed & hair
“criminals us make doesn’t
I wish “Aubade at Night or Serenade in the Morning” serves as a documentary of the horrors of recent past and a dictionary of how to get things right back to the old past. Since around 2020, I’ve stopped listening to news in the morning, because of the ugly images it paints in our mind about Nigeria and Nigerians. I want to go back to days we all sat around radios to listen to news and great programs.
And I want “Tongueless Secrets” to be a map through life, for those seeking meaning in it and of it.
SEE ALSO: Abdulbaseet Yusuff on African Literature and the Ambiguity of Art
Mazeed: Wow! I’m speechless. You stuffed so much vision into less than 200 pages of poetry. I pray these visions materialise soon.
The second part of ‘Aubade at Night or Serenade in the Morning’ shows how you’re your mother’s prayers answered — “a fire, a moon, a fighter, a winner”, and the lad whose head was said to be a burden to his body, turned “a sundown miracle wetting tongues with serenades and sonnets”. It reflects on the humaneness of creatives, irony of prayers and wishes and pours light on how much familial relationships and love mean to you despite the heart-rending sacrifices that accompany them. Here, you salute your parents and go on to question parenting styles, especially the upbringing of the male child in our milieu, which has filled our communities with broken men, who are the bane of our society, like you assert in ‘poem’ thus; “the body of a boy carrying deep sighs is a labyrinth of hot coals: it burns things. even the title of a poem.”
What do you think is the ideal parenting style? What do you think our parents have been doing wrong all these years?
Taofeek: In short, parenting should be partly tutelage and partly friendship. Parents should be people the children can discuss anything and everything with. While the common parenting style of our parents yielded fine generations compared to what this current generation is pruning, the style was burdensome to some extent. The idea that a male child must be strong in mind and muscle was wrong. The idea that girl child belongs to the kitchen and the other room was also not so fair. Once, I should be thirteen or fourteen, I was ill and the doctor was surprised I had a high BP at that age. She advised I shouldn’t be allowed to lift heavy objects from that moment. A few weeks after I got better, I was almost beaten to the well to fetch water with heavy buckets and basins. You know, I was a boy. Boys should be stone. Only Dad was curious to know what went wrong with me. I can’t remember what got me anxious and/or depressed, but I know something actually messed up my mind. Old parents didn’t try to understand their kids weaknesses and strength, every work was divided based on gender. Although in my father’s house, there was a fair balance, both boys and girls populate the kitchen when it’s time for cooking.
Mazeed: I can so relate to you almost beaten to the well to fetch water. It’s how our society is positioned and I hope our generation does not end up as a mishap to parenting like the moment suggests.
Taofek: I just hope. Social media has bridged distances, lifted roadblocks and erased borders. This generation now easily stare at other clime’s culture, especially the filthy ones tainted with “wokeness.” And you know, as a legal maxim says, you can’t give what you don’t have. The moral decadence that characterizes this new generation is what they will likely pass onto the next
Mazeed: Hmm. It’s sad. God’s aid is sought. Amen.
And talking about God and legal maxims: You know, If I was God, then every lawyer is a prospective hell candidate. (laughs) But your hint in ‘li-fi’, at how lawyers become relevant when the hallowed lifestyles of witty boys boomerang, impairs my sense of moral judgement because the patient boy also deserves to survive. ‘Fireplace’ further stroke poignant strings in my heart and ‘I didn’t write the confession’ reminded me that “a bigger grief is eating” the have-nots as if their stomachs protruding with emptiness is not grief enough.
What is it like being a chauffeur of justice in the wake of a carnivorous judiciary, police brutality, poverty, carnage and the struggle for survival in this land?
Taofeek: It is messy. Everything is f*cked up as Mark Manson’s book reads. The prosecutors are often persecutors. They want to convict every suspect just to count their own scores. Your notion about lawyers is what the society at large feels it is. Every person that kills is a murderer in our eyes. We forget the principle of self-defense. We forget provocation. We forget that as a result of these possibilities, a suspect should be deemed innocent and his fundamental right should be respected. So when a lawyer pushes for this, he becomes a liar in the public eyes. Yes, there are gaps the technicalities of the law open for manipulation, but that’s not true of all legal practitioners. In this messy environment, we can only do our best. While struggling for survival, we should mind our businesses and save our heads. While trying to be activists, we should leave advocacy for lawyers, because even lawyers are brutalized by police and jailed by unjust judges.
Mazeed: That “even lawyers are victims” is a reflection of how rotten our justice system is.
Taofeek: Yes, it is that bad.
Mazeed: Away from all the negatives, let’s talk about love.
Your poem, Contours depicts the irony of love in realistic colours. It tells how following the dictates of your heart has brought you pain. I am sorry your road has been rough and I am optimistic that like every rough path, treasure lies at the end of yours, which I pray you find soon.
What is your idea of true love?
“Love is a weakness… love is sweet…” — Taofeek
Thank you. Love is a weakness, especially when you hold a true one in your heart, when you are the loyal type. Insincere people think it’s wise to have alternative in order to escape the pain of love, but like Shams Tebriz said “How can love be worthy of its name if one selects solely the pretty things and leaves out the hardships? It is easy to enjoy the good and dislike the bad. Anybody can do that. The real challenge is to love the good and the bad together, not because you need to take the rough with the smooth but because you need to go beyond such descriptions and accept love in its entirety.” He went on to say about its possible weakness and grief that “If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough.” Love is sweet, not because of the absence of bitterness, but because of the ability to share every good and damn experience, smilingly. You can’t escape strikes that lead to contours if you are the truthful type. But I always say, a gentleman will remain so, let heaven falls.
Mazeed: A gentleman will remain so. Let heaven fall. That’s encouraging for people having rough patches with their love lives.
Taofeek: Yes, true love has not gone with the past. We’ll find it. You can find someone that loves you despite your weakness(es).
Mazeed: You touched on death in your collections, time and again, but I think the most touching mention is that Keji did not live her name. What makes her so special that only death could abort your hopes of a future with her? What kind of woman do you find your bee making honey from?
Taofeek: Keji was young but not totally innocent [smiles]. She grew up in an environment that misshapes kids, especially when the parents were often away. It gave the kids a sort of freedom that is a slippery slope. But Keji was amenable to change. I found her open-minded and unlike her previous life, she started to take her faith serious. We discussed each other’s weaknesses and strength, hopes and dreams. She was beautiful and wise. What does God need to love if not your submission and rebirth? But death played a fastest finger on her life. Moving away from her story, I want to make honey with a kind woman. All we need to be in life and make the world a better place is to be kind.
Mazeed: Hmm. Death is cruel. How it rewrites our lives is inexplicable.
So, off to Tongueless Secrets…
I think the second collection, Tongueless Secrets, from ‘Genesis’ to ‘Revelation’, like the Bible, is quite proverbial. The poems arrestingly draw you in and spit you out with questions oscillating your mind like Eliud Kipchoge on a racecourse. The depth of the poems is such that when you think you are beginning to relate to them, you realise you are only in your head, giving the lines perspectives that may or may not be what Aswagaawy is actually saying. This collection “queries how i travel with questions in the baggage of my mind when i have answers in the depth of my pocket (the book, Tongueless Secrets)”. Unfortunately, these answers leave us with more questions, but then, they are tongueless secrets after all. And like in ‘When They Asked Me About Fate’, the voice of Tongueless Secrets is “a grave of words” that we dig until we tire. Ultimately, the adventure of exploring the lines makes this collection more intriguing.
“When I was asked at the Gymnasium workshop in 2019 what I want the world to think of me or my works, I responded simply to be known as a patriot and sage…” — Taofeek
Taofeek: When I was asked at the Gymnasium workshop in 2019 what I want the world to think of me or my works, I responded simply to be known as a patriot and sage. A sage, like Rumi, whose works you run to for wisdoms on the know-how and how-to of approaching life’s situations. That’s why Tongueless Secrets is dedicated “to co-travelers seeking meaning in/of life.”
In the chapbook, you’ll find things about life, death and everything in between, especially fate and faith. As you’ve rightly noted, it begins with a poem titled “Genesis” and ends with “Revelation,” which is simply a creative effort towards the transition of the message and spirit of the collection.
Mazeed: So, I have not seen many poems, but I think the title of the third poem, ‘What Shams Tebriz Meant When He Said “You Can Study God Through Everything and Everyone in the Universe, Because God is Not Confined in a Mosque, Synagogue, or Church. But if You are Still in Need of Knowing Where Exactly His Abode is, there is Only One Place to Look for Him: in the Heart of a True Lover. There is No One Who Has Lived After Seeing Him, Just Like There is No One Who Has Died After Seeing Him. Whoever Finds Him Will Remain with Him Forever” is that Our Body is a Temple Ignited by His Moonlight’, is phenomenal.
I think the poem deserves a world record as the one with the longest title. However, just like I am not sure if there’s is a poem with a longer title, I am not sure of many things about this poem save that the poem is not a haiku, because I took my time to count the syllables of every line. (laughs)
What is this poem? How did you come about such a poem and an equally tongue-tiring title? I have worried my head so much that it would be unwise to let you off without getting an exegesis of this poem. Mayhaps, my many doubts will rest at last.
Taofeek: On the poem with the longest title, it’s an attempt towards “avantgarde”, or experimentation: from the title, to the content and how it ends. The first experiment is the title being a very long one, and we may be right to say it’s the poem with the longest title ever. Another experiment is the “dictionary entry” style which establishes that the poem seeks to investigate into the meaning of “the body as a temple”. Another is the stanza that begins with the biblical line “the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,” which when read with the first 6 lines of the stanza that follows makes it a “found haibun.” That poem is a conglomerate of forms and styles, and it preaches religious tolerance, both inter and intra. You will agree with me that most of the global unrest is no thanks to religion. The poem points to humanity and love as the crux of faith. It reminds all that what ends all man’s struggle in life is death, and the poem closes with the epitaph on the grave of Alexander the Great that says “the space in this tomb now suffices for him, for whom the whole world was too confined.”
Mazeed: And here’s one helluva succinct exegesis.
Taofeek: And it barely scratches the surface. Readers bear the freedom to give it more interpretations.
Mazeed: Obviously. One can premise a PhD thesis on it. (laughs) And thanks for the confirmation. We should write to the Guiness Book of Records to make this entry: The author of the first Haibun collection to come from Africa doubles as the poet with the longest poem title.
The fact that you’re brave enough to experiment with poetry like you did in this strange poem screams versatility. And if no one does, I’m giving you your flowers; you’re a momentous ‘evil’ to befall poetry.
Taofeek: Many thanks for your kind words.
Mazeed: And more about your versatility: The eclecticism of your taste in poetry and flow of inspiration that these collections show is captivating. But I believe it’ll be more fascinating to know what inspired the conversation in ‘How I PETITION God with a REWRITTEN fate’
Can you help with that?
“Have you ever wondered why it rains in a town and the houses of the pagans are not left out?” — Taofeek
Taofeek: God is the Creator, and we are conscious co-creators of our own fate, I believe. All you need do is to pray. Prayers. Entreaties. Supplications. Invocations. Everyone has ways of speaking to God, even if some modes are scripturally wrong, Only One Supreme Being answers through every medium. The poem speaks against the belief that “god is not that easy to connect./ you need to bath and apply oil,” because He answers to every person in the world. Have you ever wondered why it rains in a town and the houses of the pagans are not left out?
Mazeed: I just read through the poem again and I am immersed in its depth. More about deep poems: I read ‘life’ and, though it’s a deep poem, I found myself cachinnating after it. The first thought that followed is: Did Aswagaawy struggle with Mathematics? (laughs)
Taofeek: Yes, I did. All through my secondary school, the Mathematics columns of my report cards were painted in red ink. Dad would check my result and smile, followed by “Congratulations, but you and this your Maths.” The story changed from my WAEC Mock Exams. Thanks to a friend who saw my struggle with the Maths textbook in the reading room. My brain shut down that day and I fell asleep. When I woke up, I found Samuel Osayande beside me, laughing. And he helped me with “Construction, Bearing and Distance, Surds and others.” Ironically, I have always passed my Mathematics through my 4 years of waiting after secondary, but was seriously failing Literature-in-English. But is a mathematical approach not how we face life?
Mazeed: (laughs) I thought as much. When I saw “a letter to mathematicians”, I was like “Daddy, where art thou? Someone is coming to attack you”.
Congratulations! Now that you’re a lawyer, you can kiss Math ‘goodbye’. But then, the mathematical approach is how we face life. So, ironically, you’ve not seen the last of Mathematics.
Taofeek: Exactly, it’s not over until it is over.
Mazeed: Yeah, it sure isn’t.
And talking about ironies, it’s funny how you failed Literature-in-English and now you’re lording over literary devices. I love how you describe your complexion in ‘We All are Coloured Suns’; “at times it [the sun] burns my skin into a plantain forgotten in an angry oil and anytime I enter a dark night, I disappear”. It preaches contentment with skin colour, like the seventh and sixth items on your ‘list of broken things’. But I am curious; when you decide to walk away in the TV show, ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’, the host tells you the answer of the question that set you on your heels. The answer to your question is subjective, but there’s a chance that it’ll guide me on how to find my answers to the one you asked.
So I return your question to you; what colour of sunlight are you?
Mazeed: It depends on circumstance. We all go through these colours at some point in time of our lives. Life will be unfair if one colour is restricted to a person. Just like “ember” is the poem of the moment for you, “telephone call” may be for another person.
Mazeed: You asked your father in ‘How I PETITION God with a REWRITTEN fate’, “what does the bridge do to the water flowing under it? what?”.
I am sorry you didn’t get his response before his passing to the greater beyond. May God grant his soul repose. I wouldn’t pressure you to answer the question yourself. Hopefully, a poet will find the question prompt enough to throw his hat in the ring.
But tell me, what do pigeons symbolise in your poetry?
Taofeek: Amen! Thank you. Like dove, they symbolize peace and like in “Troy: Fall of a City,” they symbolize rituals. They symbolize fate, events beyond man’s control as a line in “When They Asked Me About Fate” reads “there is a rain beating the pigeons into the community of fowls.” They are omen of beautiful many things, and in the poem “. . .,” they represent what they really are: bliss, and more importantly, strokes of serendipity.
Mazeed: Like you read my mind for the origin of the question. The lines you quoted at the end are the ones that birthed it.
You mentioned that you are the second of a pair of twins at the beginning of this conversation. You know, biologists say something about twins begetting twins. I think Tongueless Secrets is proof to this. You left behind a pair of twins, ‘The Language of Silence’ and ‘The Language of Sounds’, for our minds to nurse. Something is striking about the pair that I can’t seem to understand.
Away from genetics, tell us about these twins of yours: I’m not sure if it’s wise to think they’re together by coincidence
Taofeek: I wondered how the infinitesimal of things speak to us than the mighty. The twin poems are some of the meanings I personally seek in life. I ask in “The Language of Silence” that “How do your fingers call you /to crack them when it’s due? /How do your ears tell you /to pick the cotton board?” and went further to opine that “Silence is a loud voice /only heard by nomadic minds — /only they hear the sounds of /of ant’s legs as they stamp the earth…” Rumi said “It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” And just like silence speaks to us, so does sound; and that’s what “The Language of Sounds” investigates. I wrote them at different times, but consciously placed them together while working on the collection.
Mazeed: So I was right to call them twins.
The lines you quoted from ‘The Language of Silence’ made me ponder. Really, you panned the ‘little’ things we really do not give mind to and reawaken us to the beauty of our creation in this form
And here’s the last question: You captured the dream of us creatives in ‘I like to think of this land as a potpourri of honey & milk’, which you closed with “I still like to think of this land as a good news. a mail parcel holding a perfumed contributor’s copy of a tasty fiction coming true.”
I want you to close this conversation with a word for budding creatives. How do you suppose they pursue this dream?
Taofeek: Creative writing is a career that flourishes only with the fire of passion. You have to enjoy doing it. You have to establish a purpose to drive you. Without these, you are bound to get disinterested.
Mazeed: Words! And as a ‘goodbye’, how can our readers get copies of your collections so they can flow with the conversation?
Taofeek: They’ll find links to getting the books here.
Mazeed: Many thanks for your time and attention, Aswagaawy. I wish the conversation will not end.
Taofeek: Yes, I too do.
Mazeed: But like every transient good, I must let you go. It’s been a pleasure having you dissect your collections for us to understand better and I look forward to another one. And here’s where we say ‘Sayonara’.
Taofeek: It’s my pleasure, and I thank you for your interesting discourse.
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Mazeed Mukhtar Oyeleye is a creative writer and journalist who sees writing as a transit to territories too threatening for the tongue to patronize. He is an alum of the SprinNG Writing Fellowship (Class of 2021).
His works have appeared in the World Voices Magazine, Litlight’s Road to Success and SprinNG’s Come Back Safely anthologies, Allpoetry, Book O’Clock Review, Spare Parts Lit and elsewhere.
Mazeed clinched the second place in both the Civichive Roadto2023 Essay Competition and the 7th El-Critical Writing Contest and emerged second runner-up in the Gamji Prime Writing Contest in 2023, in addition to accolades from previous years.
He tweets @mazeedulkhayr.
